Warhammer: In the Name of Ashes

"A... palace! Fire from the sky! Our people... can't get through it!"

The young soldier spoke incoherently, for there was something there beyond the limits of his barren imagination.

It was difficult for him to use his own vocabulary to describe the tragic and spectacular scene. That kind of scene was beyond the cognition of these people who lived in the tribal era.

But that's enough.

The keywords heard from the soldiers' mouths were enough to confirm Calvin's conjecture, and the remaining information was not something these mortals could provide.

Calvin turned around and said to Mars under the gaze of all the soldiers:

"How many supplies are left?"

"Seven days, or 13 days if distributed centrally." Mars answered immediately.

"Then 7 days. You guys wait here for me to come back. If you can't wait for me after 7 days, go back."

As he spoke, Calvin dismounted, took out his sword from the saddle bag, and then gave this order to the soldiers.

"You want to go in alone? It's too dangerous!"

Mars immediately dissuaded him, and the soldiers also stared at Calvin, hoping that he would take back his order.

"Do I need to repeat the order?"

Calvin's movements were methodical. After hanging the sword on his waist, he took out the dry food and water bags one after another.

During this period, he didn't even raise his head and spoke plain words. After years of accumulated power, Mars and others' breathing became slow, and they all knelt down on one knee to show their submission.

"That's it. The war going forward does not belong to your category. Just wait for me here and don't explore further."

After saying that, he picked up his packed luggage and walked towards the fallen forest, leaving his followers looking at each other with their heads lowered and their hands lowered.

Going forward, the environment is getting worse and worse. The original giant trees that fell radially outward had grown for thousands of years before experiencing this disaster.

Towering trees with several people hugging each other are common here and can be seen everywhere.

Calvin walked between these giant trees several meters in diameter and walked towards the central basin.

Yes, basin.

The impact from beyond the sky is like a comet creating the moon. Under the indescribable huge impact, the terrain here has been permanently changed.

This foreign object lost almost no mass in the atmosphere, and literally released the mass and kinetic energy it carried on the earth.

The soil was as soft as water under the impact. The huge kinetic energy cracked the plates deep in the mantle. At the same time, the aftermath of the energy brought the compressed air to burn and dispersed in a radius of hundreds of miles around.

Calvin was now standing on the edge of the basin.

From the height of the edge of this giant bowl, he could clearly see the center of the bottom of the bowl with his extraordinary eyesight.

The goal of his trip was wrapped in the magma gushing out from the earth's veins:

A steel behemoth five kilometers long and one kilometer wide, made purely of metal;

One of the masters of imperial aviation technology and military technology;

The most commonly used naval warfare weapon by the Imperial Navy and other military organizations;

Renowned for its versatile combat capabilities and modular low-maintenance standards, the Moon-class cruiser is a lifelong enemy of the Empire's enemies.

Well, look at the miniature Phalanx model hanging on the bow of this steel Leviathan, and the towering church building behind the hull.

Calvin added another note to the back of this Moon-class cruiser:

A battle barge belonging to an unknown sub-chapter of the Imperial Fists.

This is indeed the case. From the battleship's side deck, which was licked black by flames, Calvin could vaguely see a battle group mark that he did not recognize:

An imperial eagle, engulfed in flames, sits atop a sacred skull symbolizing human purity.

This was a battle group mark that had not been noted in the internal documents of the Inquisition that he had read in his memory.

In other words, this unknown war group did not survive until the era when Calvin was active.

A Moon-class cruiser that fell to the surface for unknown reasons, a doomed battle group whose name is unknown but is doomed in Calvin's eyes.

This is the valid information he has collected now.

The overall condition of the battleship was relatively intact, and Calvin did not see any obvious deformation of its keel.

Except for the outer deck, which was charred and dark red where it came into contact with the magma, the complete armor belt and fully equipped weapons array were all in place.

This is a battleship that was naturally captured by the gravity of the planet without human operation after the void shield was turned on.

In other words, what it encounters is not external threats, but more dangers may come from within.

The battleship fell more than ten days ago. The cirrocumulus clouds in the sky have dissipated and the dust in the air has long since fallen to the ground.

The soil around the battleship has long disappeared, and the magma gushing out of the ground has also been cold and hot, hot and cold again. I don't know how many times it has alternated.

Calvin took a deep breath into the wind, and the sulfur compounds and unburned carbon monoxide in the air activated his superhuman organs.

The filtering and detoxification functions composed of the third lung and the stone kidney were activated at the same time. Calvin, who was fully prepared, faced the inhuman living environment ahead and jumped from the edge of the basin, using the cooled part of the magma to jump. , began his journey of exploration.

Calvin's flexible body shuttled over large and small black basalt rocks, and occasionally flashes of light were refracted from these cooled rocks. It was the light of mineral crystals brought out by magma from deep in the earth's mantle.

The model of the Phalanx on the bow of the ship is becoming more and more obvious, and the inscriptions on the dome and columns of the church on the top of the ship are clearly visible.

In less than half an hour, Calvin had already crossed a distance of more than ten kilometers in this inhuman environment.

And during this continuous jumping and traveling, he even had time to think.

There are no scars on the warship from recent participation in large-scale naval battles, so the problem is most likely to come from within.

And if the threat is directed inside the ship, from a safety perspective, he must ensure the concealment of his whereabouts.

Another five minutes passed.

Standing on the slightly skewed roof of the cruiser after it sank into the lava, Calvin looked at a carefully chosen crack in the armor, and the corners of his mouth curled up slightly.

This is due to the universal drawings of the Lunar class cruiser.

Every Moon-class cruiser is the same. If you want to inspect the lance turret exposed in space in a vacuum environment, then the reserved channel for this unmanned robotic arm is inevitable and must be placed in the lance turret. nearby.

With three strokes, five divided by two, he used the inferior steel sword in his hand to pry open the screws on the top deck.

Calvin reached out and grabbed the ceramic cover, which was palm-thick, several meters square, and weighed nearly 3 tons. The muscles around his body tensed up to lift it up, and then threw it to the ground in the distance.

boom!

Elvis closed the hatch behind him, then slid along the steel wall behind him and sat on the same cold floor.

The life indicator in the servo flashed scarlet parameters, which not only proved that he did not have much life left, but also heralded the failure of their entire battle group.

What can be done?

Elvis kept asking himself.

This is not his problem, and it is naturally not something he can solve.

Could it be that if there was something wrong with the original seed, then the farmer who planted it could be blamed?

But Elvis couldn't let himself go. He remembers every brother who died before his eyes:

He had completed his task according to the established surgical procedure, but the various mutations and distortions that occurred in the recipient were something he had never expected.

He has tried his best to solve the problem, but with little success. All known technical methods have been tried, but more mutations are still occurring unstoppably.

He tried to seek help from the Chapter Master or a higher level, but the mutation of the gene seed made the Chapter Master silent and unresponsive to his request.

Yes, he knew it even after he calmed down.

If he really reports the mutation of the Chapter's gene seeds as he wishes, then what awaits him may not be help from the Council of High Lords, but an encirclement and suppression by the Inquisition and other Chapters...

The Council of High Lords cannot be counted on.

This group of battle groups from the 21st Founding of the Army is a transitional product.

Except for a small amount of material supplies that were available before the combat mission was issued, they had never received any resources from these high-ranking officials in the empire.

What about the nominal parent group?

The same cannot be counted on. The Imperial Fists have never even acknowledged their relationship in public, and the Chapter Tournament of the Hundred Years Sword Pact has never been open to them.

It was a silent contempt, the details of which he, as the Chapter's only apothecary, might not have been aware of.

But whenever the Chapter's base ship passed by Terra, he could read a certain sadness in the Chapter Master's eyes that had been looking at the Phalanx for a long time, a sadness that he did not want to dwell on.

Ask them for help?

Elvis smiled, and the loudspeaker in the breathing space emitted a high-pitched sound under his stimulation.

If they really knew about the problem of the gene seeds, I am afraid that these people would be the first to raise a butcher's knife against them to ensure that the purity and sanctity of the Sons of Dorne would not be tarnished, right?

"Brother! I, my dear, brother!"

In the small lounge of the medical department, Elvis looked at the flaming eagle mark on his body and cried softly.

And in the lobby of the medical department separated by a wall, there were heavy footsteps approaching...

After entering the self-maintenance pipe, Calvin crawled for a long time among the messy cables and equipment, and finally walked out of a maintenance equipment room reserved for the servitors.

Opening the dusty iron door, Calvin poked his head out to observe the surrounding environment.

The main lighting equipment in the empty corridor has been turned off, and only the green indicator light is still working.

There was an uneasy atmosphere in the distant air. Occasionally, unknown cables would short-circuit, making crackling sparks of electricity in the quiet space.

Calvin took off the leather boots under his feet. The soles, which were layered and sewn with horn slices, were flexible enough, but they were still too conspicuous in this environment where the Emperor's Angel existed.

This was why Calvin was reluctant to bring his soldiers.

With the possibility of confrontation with this group of supermen, the human body is too weak, and the common sense of human combat is no longer applicable.

Others don't know how abnormal Lyman's Ear is when its abilities are fully activated. Calvin, as the Primarch, definitely knows.

Calvin stepped barefoot on the cold ceramic floor, and the muscles all over his body exerted force and relaxed in an orderly manner. The feline-like force-exerting skills were reflected in his body.

With each step, the heel touches the ground first, then the soft and silent sole of the foot slowly touches the floor in the air, and finally ends with the contact of the tip of the toe.

He was heading toward the bridge, which was the most densely populated place and where it was easiest to collect information.

He wanted to know what had happened here, and what was the reason that caused this battle barge belonging to the Astartes to fall from the sky to the earth in a martyr's suicide posture with its void shields fully activated.

The corridor of the main road was too dangerous, and Calvin was not eager to set foot in it. The cable channel separated by a wall from the main road was his route.

The smell of blood in the air is getting stronger and stronger, and the exhaust valve and air filter are still working.

What happened on the main road, Calvin could not see for the time being. But the smell that could be smelled in the pipeline channel told him that a bloody killing had occurred here.

The maintenance of the pipeline channel is of a node nature. From the beginning of the design, it is arranged intermittently on both sides of the channel in the direction of the main road.

With no way to go ahead, when Calvin saw the gate at the end of the pipeline, he knew that he was exposed to the view of the main road monitoring equipment and had no choice but to do so.

He turned over and crawled out of the pipe, then cautiously looked back at the main road in the direction he came from.

As expected, the bodies of the Astartes, the owners of these battleships, were sleeping peacefully on the steel floor.

"Um?"

With a rough sweep of his vision, Calvin was about to turn around and leave when the details of the information collected in his eyes flashed through his mind.

He turned his head again, walked slowly towards these Astartes warriors who had been dead for a long time, bent down and squatted down, and then carefully looked at the unusual features on these corpses.

"Mutation? Not chaos corruption! Primary? Mutation at the genetic level?"

He made a conclusion in his own mind, then reached out and took off the Mark IV helmet of an Astartes to confirm again.

"Yes, the genetic mutation of the original hair type. There is a high probability that there is something wrong with the gene seed..."

Calvin thought with a heavy heart.

This can explain why they disappeared and failed to survive until the 39th millennium when Calvin was active.

The mutations of gene seeds all have sufficient hysteresis.

Just like human cancer in the 2K era, when the mutation of the first seed is reflected in the warriors of the war group, it usually means that there is a problem with the entire war group.

But compared with cancer, which has no possibility of spreading due to the monolithic nature of human beings, once there is a problem with the seeds of the Chapter, it means the demise of the Chapter.

Calvin doesn't know the current situation of this chapter.

But he was still clear about the regulations governing Chapter seeds in the Codex Astartes.

After the era of the Great Heresy, there was a strong distrust of the Astartes warriors throughout the Empire.

Being under pressure in this aspect is also a painful lesson for the legion rebellion. The Primarch Robert Guilliman personally set up a mechanism for regular sampling of the Astartes Chapter's gene-seed.

In addition to the seed tax, this is one of the few obligations that the Astartes, as the highest force in the empire, cannot refuse.

To refuse is tantamount to rebellion.

As long as there is rebellion, it must be surrounded and killed.

Judging from the information that Calvin has received so far, the seed mutation of this war group has been extremely obvious, and it is impossible to pass the empire's random inspection.

Correspondingly, their fate of being wiped out of their serial numbers by the High Lords Council and the Tribunal of the Empire is equally inevitable.

Two in one, update please vote.

The writing software machine is not happy, and it breaks down.

The typesetting function is completely scrapped, and typos cannot be recognized...

I have no choice but to post first and change later. Please allow me to take my time.