40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 621 7. Pest Control (I)

A kind of inhuman roar came from afar, and Azrael ignored it and used his concentration elsewhere. He had not yet realized that this was a very valuable talent, but it didn't matter, because he would always use it well.

Years of training, genetic modification surgery and natural alertness made him aware of a small friction sound coming from above his head. An idea rose from the bottom of his heart and was put into practice.

Azrael turned around and raised his sword. The energy field crackled in an instant, blue light flashed, and a flesh and blood body hissed and hung on his sword.

The four hands of the thing were still moving, and the long and sharp claws kept scratching on his shoulder armor, causing sparks and metal wailing.

Azrael twisted his wrist hard, then swung his arm violently, cutting the failed attacker who had not completed the attack in half, but it was not dead yet. The four degenerate - or perhaps evolved for them - claws were still struggling, trying to kill Azrael.

The Dark Angel took a step back, dodging this crazy attack without any rules by a hair's breadth, and then thrust out a sword, completely piercing its head.

Viscous blood splashed out, staining the road surface of the mine red. Their blood was not the green described in the information, nor was it the pus that Azrael had seen before. Instead, it was almost the same as that of humans, but too viscous.

This discovery made him hate these aliens even more. Without thinking, Azrael could also know why this phenomenon was born.

But now was not the time to think. Some huge force smashed the wall with a roar. Among the flying rubble, another pure-blooded gene stealer pounced on him, and the four deadly claws became more and more terrifying in the narrow space.

In just a moment, Azrael immediately judged that he could not dodge this attack, so he adopted another strategy. He raised his sword slightly, charged forward, and knocked the pure-blooded one away.

Its claws didn't even have time to leave a scratch on his power armor, but this was not the end. Azrael calmly slashed horizontally, splitting the monster in two from top to bottom.

It seemed like an easy victory, but Azrael knew in his heart that he had actually brushed shoulders with death twice just now. Moreover, now was not the time to celebrate, because his mission was not yet completed.

Azrael put away his sword, turned around and ran. Indescribable dense sounds came from behind him. He didn't need to look back, he knew what those sounds meant. But now he just had to run.

He ran towards the place where the roar came from, while silently counting the seconds.

At the eleventh second, he passed a turning lane with crates. At the thirteenth second, there was a loud rumble behind him, and the flames of the explosion flew across with pieces of meat and chitinous shells, splashing in front of him.

At the nineteenth second, he arrived at the second-to-last mark, and at the twenty-second second, another explosion was heard. At the 25th second, he jumped up, rushed out of the cave, and jumped down from a height of nearly six meters.

Countless aliens rushed out from behind him, carrying flames, screams, and bloodthirsty desires.

What greeted them were the Dark Angels' explosive bombs, promethium flamethrowers and plasma, and Asmodai's roar that made people want to be deafened.

Azrael selectively ignored the last one. He didn't hate Asmodai, but simply refused to listen to the roar. When he was still in the cave as bait, he was tired of hearing it. For this reason, he even temporarily blocked Asmodai in the communication channel.

He stood up, sheathed his sword, and walked to another Dark Angel, who was squatting next to the corpse of a Genestealer mutant to observe and record.

"Captain Saffiste." Azrael called. "The mission has been completed."

His captain hummed absent-mindedly, and then there was a silence of more than ten seconds.

Azrael was a little confused. He didn't understand what was so worthy of the captain's attention, but he soon understood because Sufist had taken the initiative to explain.

"Look at this monster, Azrael, do you know what it is?"

"A mutant." Azrael answered quickly. "Extremely strong, even surpassing us in terms of physical strength, with strong attack power, but unfortunately it is mentally retarded, which can be easily solved through cooperation and tactics."

"Yes, cooperation and tactics."

Sufist stood up in thought. He didn't wear a helmet, but he didn't need a helmet. An iron halo was waiting behind his head.

"In fact, any enemy can be solved through cooperation and tactics, but you'd better forget this idea and step on it."

"Why, captain?" Azrael asked confusedly. "Isn't this the information sent by the Inquisition?"

Sufist turned around and looked at Azrael sternly. He had a certain degree of genetic mutation, so he got a head of white hair that was regarded as an ominous sign.

The lower half of his face was covered by an exquisite light golden mask, hiding the missing parts. The maker skillfully used the arc of the metal to imitate his former lips and chin, making him look no different from before, even more majestic.

"Cooperation and tactics are established when we can still use them, but soon, we will be in a much worse situation than now. Look around, Azrael, how many third-generation and fourth-generation hybrids do you see?"

"There are not many of them, right? This means that this place has reached deep into the hinterland of their lair. The further you go, the more pure-blooded and other genetically mutated monsters there will be."

"They are endless, but our numbers will not change. You must learn to be flexible, Azrael. The reason why tactics are complicated and changeable is to make it easier for us to adapt to local conditions and use them at any time."

"So, Captain, not having a tactic is still a tactic?"

Safist did not smile, but similar emotions clearly flashed through the gray eyes under his white hair.

He nodded, then returned to the center of the team, issued new orders, and began to communicate with other teams, asking them to rendezvous with him as the center.

The Lion's request was to act in secret, so the three hundred Dark Angels who accompanied him here were temporarily divided into combat teams as early as the landing, carrying a large amount of heavy firepower, and entered the quasi-prefecture through various methods. Explore the complex underground system of the hive city and re-examine the mines and drainage pipes.

They were very successful, especially Safist's team. Judging from the current situation, they only need to regroup to break into the heart of this gene stealer cult, meet the so-called leader, and then kill him and severely damage the entire cult.

Standing among the team, Azrael thought carefully about the entire tactic, but the brand-new light guns placed in the crates he saw not long ago flashed before his eyes.

He frowned, feeling vaguely uneasy. Although he had already told the senior officers about this, both them and Azriel himself knew that infiltrating both upper and lower classes at the same time was the unchangeable gene stealer. One of the strategies.

On Banjo-1, some nobles or officers must have been infected, but they arrived relatively early, so there is still a solution to all this - as long as the clan leader is killed in a surprise attack, everything after that will be much simpler no matter what. .

But, will things really go so smoothly? ——

From the body of the last pure-blood, the lion pulled out the Spear of Dionysus. Staring at the ugly face of the thing, he couldn't help but wonder: What would an alien see when it was stabbed by this spear?

"It is an alien, so it can only see death." Leman Russ said.

The lion drew out his spear and walked toward Khalil with blood on the ground. The one disadvantage of not wearing any armor appeared at this moment - his boots.

These thick leather boots, which were not prepared for fighting, were easily slippery in such a place filled with blood and minced flesh. Therefore, he had to consider where his next step should be before every step he took, and his gait became quite strange.

Russ let out a slight scoff, but the Lion ignored it.

He had long since learned to ignore this stupid wolf during battles. If ten thousand years were not enough to teach him this, then he might as well have been killed by the Spear of Dionysus.

"Then come in and keep me company?" Ruth asked quietly, with a smile that couldn't be concealed in her voice. "That's okay with me, Leon, but could you bring some wine in?"

The lion took a deep breath and threw all the complicated thoughts out of his mind, including the thought of talking back, and then started talking to his blood-covered companion.

"what's on your mind?"

"I wonder when riots and rebellions will occur," his companion replied softly. "With such a large-scale clearing operation, unless I can directly shock them to death through the psychic network, they will definitely notice something is wrong."

"Therefore, the third and fourth generation hybrids among them are likely to go out in droves to the ground to incite the poor people of Banjo-1, or directly assassinate a few people who are usually domineering in public. I think their primary targets must be military camps and communications agencies.”

"Tell me that you notified the local army, and then tell me why you didn't just use psychic energy to shock them to death." The lion demanded succinctly.

His expression was not very happy, as if he was suppressing anger. Khalil was a little surprised by this, but he soon realized that the anger was not directed at him.

The lion slowly sat down on a broken boulder.

This stone once belonged to a heavy wall. Three minutes ago, it stayed on the wall to perform its duties, until some force that it could not resist shattered it in the blue light, causing it to fly out and crush it. A lot of gene stealers died.

It no longer had any duties to fulfill, but the lion didn't mind giving it a new one for a short while.

He raised the Spear of Dionysus, placed the spear on his knees like a meditating knight of Caliban, and closed his eyes.

Then, there was a long breath - when he opened his eyes again, the dark green eyes belonging to Leon El'Jonson had been replaced by some kind of glacier-splitting blue.

Leman Russ smiled happily, then stood up and twisted his neck.

"Oh, uncle! It's been so long!"

He raised his spear and charged at Khalil with a playful smile. The latter glanced at him with raised eyebrows, but did not dodge. Instead, he allowed Russ to pick him up, but his voice became a bit strange.

"I said, Ruth"

"how?"

"What's the matter with that title?"

"Don't you think this title is reasonable?"

Ruth asked back with great enthusiasm, and then laughed and let Khalil fall to the ground. His laughter was as bright as if he had made a very satisfying joke.

“.It’s up to you.” Khalil shook his head. “But I really didn’t expect you could do this.”

Russ blinked at him: “It’s always possible, Khalil, but it took this stupid lion a long time to realize it. His Caliban thinking mode is like a knight’s armor, which is only useful in a few cases and is completely inferior to our Fenris people’s keen sense of smell.”

“Actually, I just want to know, why did he let you out at this time?”

“Because I asked.” Russ said. "He owes me a few favors, very big ones, so he has to listen to me at some point."

Khalil kept silent at this time and did not comment on this matter, while Russ picked up the lion's previous question: "So, did you notify the local army?"

"This is the first thing I did after sending the key. Don't worry, Russ, I used psychic detection, and not many of them were infected. As for now, they have probably been found and shot for a while."

Russ nodded: "This is a bit strange, huh? They didn't prioritize the defense forces."

"That's because they have almost infiltrated all the nobles and officials." Khalil said, and smiled slowly. "My experience in the local Ministry of Justice office building was not very pleasant."

Russ smacked his lips and picked up the spear, and then casually carried it on his shoulder: "So, the last thing?"

"Because I can't." Khalil answered very calmly.

He opened his coat and showed the hole that had not yet healed to Russ. The pupils of the Fenris man suddenly shrank, and a certain intuition beyond reason helped him understand what Khalil could not say at this moment.

But with it came more questions. He frowned for a long time, and finally couldn't help asking.

"So, you are now?"

Khalil smiled playfully: "I am just an ordinary psychic who wants to try to become a human again - let's go, Russ, we have to go to the water plant."

"The chief issued an order to its purebloods through the mental network six seconds ago, asking them to rush to the water plant and water circulation system of Banjo-1."

Leman Russ bared his fangs and nodded with a smile.