Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 435: The clean Nurgle warriors are coming!
In the square in front of the "Delicious and Nutritious" restaurant, pilgrims lined up in an orderly manner today, praying to the Holy Spirit Torch and waiting for hot water.

This square, now bright as day thanks to the addition of a lot of lighting funded by a wandering trader, has recently been given many new isolation fences made of ceramic steel and reinforced concrete blocks.

They were very heavy for mortals and not easily collapsed, but for the Astartes - no, no, for the tall, strong, sturdy and reliable security guards of the Kalosini Dynasty, they could be lifted by one person, making them easy to move and pack up.

So now people are used to being divided into continuous paper clip-shaped teams with very regular angles and lengths by this fence that is about above the height of an adult's waist.

If a new group of pilgrims arrived here and stood at the entrance of the square without knowing the rules or hesitated, the enthusiastic local residents on duty would shout at them and tell them to go to the end of the team and start queuing up to enter. The increase in the mobile population and the fact that a new and influential traveling merchant had officially stationed a large force here had greatly improved the security and happiness of the local residents, beyond everyone's expectations. The amazing thing was that even the moral level of the local population seemed to have improved visibly.

This was completely different from the impression that the general public in the empire had of military camps or garrisons. Generally speaking, all naval officers knew not to let their soldiers leave the ship for too long or too far, otherwise it was very likely that the next time they were seen they would be in the flogging yard or in situations where the prisoners were dragged alive to every warship for people to watch the execution, or they would be drunk or have some unexpected incident.

In short, even in the Empire, most of the time, when there is a garrison camp in a place, it is basically equated with noise, dirtiness, a sharp deterioration in public security, population loss, etc. - of course, the Krieg Corps is not among them.

Some smart people thought that this counterintuitive situation was due to the glory of the Emperor that these soldiers carried and the disciplined manner they were expected to follow, while more ordinary people preferred to call it a miracle of the Holy Land. "As long as we get to the square and let the colorful light shine, we will immediately become clear-headed! We will only want to do good things and not think about bad things!"

All in all, this place is getting better day by day.

This is actually quite good, unexpectedly good in this universe.

"If you ask me, this looks like the entrance to some of the great cities of Ancient Terra... some... uh... great exhibition that would be considered an absolute heresy here."

Mr. Ramizane made these comments while drinking his glass of lemonade and looking out the window at the long, winding queue.

The new drink in his hand was developed on the restaurant menu at the request of His Royal Highness Carlosini after the average temperature in Porto Roaming rose by 5 degrees Celsius due to an increase in population. Once launched, it was well received.

Nowadays, there are even various flavors such as hand-beaten mixed berry, hand-beaten small green orange, hand-beaten apple peach, etc., and they can also cover pistachio and vanilla ice cream balls. The order volume of the last flavor among the nobles has surged, and it has become the latest signature of their restaurant. The sergeants on duty in the kitchen now have to send more people to beat the fruits, because Lord Carlosini does not allow them to work overtime and swing the hammer for too long.

As for your question about why the fruit peach pulp sparkling water in the "delicious and nutritious" restaurant is so unreasonable and can perfectly survive various temperature changes in the middle of the journey - Master Decima, the almighty war sage of the Source Huan Order and the Iron... The executive chef of the Destiny Steel may have a lot to say about this.

After listening to the man's nostalgic speech, Bian Mu glanced at him - using his current humanoid camouflage shell, while throwing away the stack of data tablets he had just processed.

[What's the matter? Is it that the lemonade that Whiterace made for you can't stop you from craving for it, or is it that the workload I assigned to you recently seems too little for you? ]

"Why do you say that? I'm just trying to take a break from work. I just finished doing a big statistical survey of the asteroid belt around Wandering Port and I need to stand up and walk around to calm my nerves... Also, this mecha from Magna is really useful! No one can fly it better than him. I love the lemonade it makes. It's great to have a glass of it during work."

[Can you please stop envying that (Olympian swear word) robot? What it can do, my iron ring can also do after modification. Or, you can call Ahlin back. He is becoming less and less like an Iron Warrior now. It's unbecoming! ]

"Oh! Pepe! I thought you didn't read it. You also read his travel reports and souvenirs? It is said that he is now heading towards the capital of the star region, Sintira. I have to say that his travel companions are quite interesting and nice after reading his description... The Iron Rings, it is really good after getting to know them, but for some reason, White Rise always gives me the feeling that he is... uh... different? It's a bit strange, do you know what I mean? It feels like he is as different as your left and right hands."

A visibly angry look flashed across the face of Perturabo's own illusion, but he held it back after a rumbling roar that was not like a human voice came out of his mouth, and decided to change the subject tactfully.

[…Sintira, you should still consider recalling Ahlin in time.]

"What? I remember nothing serious happened with Xinti at this time... Of course, I'm not familiar with the geography here. If there is something serious, we should have asked him to come back in advance."

[At this moment... basically, the flow of space-time particles in the unmanned monitoring points we have launched outward is beginning to move closer to M42, so the major events that have happened recently are actually quite, quite, quite a lot, and if you look at it on a galactic scale, you can basically think that they are happening at the same time. ]

"Oh! I do have some idea about this. Many major events did happen simultaneously during the Thirteenth Dark Crusade and the Great Rift. After all, the Dark Side of the Empire alone is quite remarkable."

[Indeed, for example, the Fall of Cadia and the Siege of Fenris occurred at the same time, which many people may know, and the destruction of Baal also began at the same moment. ]

"Huh? Huh? Wait, these three things are more than just big!"

[Of course. Also, just the events surrounding the Great Rift, namely the opening of the Scarlet Road, the formation of the Dark Side, the large-scale awakening of the aliens, the awakening of another person, and the subsequent series of events...]

"Wait, wait, why are you so familiar with all these events? Aren't some of them not happening yet?"

Perturabo's anthropomorphic face remained calm and he continued, "You actually read them before, but you didn't take them seriously, so when I was exchanging data, I read some of your relevant subconscious visual memory data along the memory classification."

"How can it be so convenient? Then why didn't you do it earlier... You didn't read my other visual memory materials, did you? No? No, right?"

His Perturabo rolled his eyes at him again when he heard that. That might be very cute on a black and white dog's face, but on a human face... Ramizarn decided to ignore it and wanted to persuade Perturabo to use his "real body" again.

[Of course, these have to be arranged in a later time frame. There are at least two or three major events or battles happening at any time around this point in time. In the distant and dark future...]

"Only war."

Perturabo nodded.

[Only war, for example, at this time, I think the Medusa should be fighting fiercely.] "Medusa? I rarely hear about the deeds of the Iron Hands at this time."

[In fact, the reason why they didn't show up at the beginning was because of this incident. ]

"what's up?"

[The Iron Hands' home planet Medusa was attacked by the combined forces of the Separatist Warband, the Cleaner Warband, and the First Company of the Death Guard, and they had to return to defend it. ]

"The Insurgency and the Cleaners? They are so strange. They can fight together with the Death Guard? It's rare. The green fat man's family rarely cooperates with others unless there is a special event."

Perturabo sneered, "These two warbands are actually followers of the Lord of Plague. The Splitter... must have been brought to Medusa on purpose, and you may not be familiar with the name of the Cleaner, but you must be very familiar with the other one."

"What is it?"

【The World Purifying Plague Army.】

"…(Gutai swear)!"

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The sudden attack on Medusa by the Chaos Cultists caught the Iron Hands by surprise, but they were not without advantages.

Firstly, because a meeting needed to be held to discuss the previous accusations, except for the Lakuan clan who was not here at the moment, and Hammonk and Karagu could not be fully trusted, all the remaining seven clans and other small clans gathered in the Antarctic Fortress. They did not even need to spend too much time to summon the army and could directly start deploying combat defenses.

Secondly, Cardan Stunus's ruthless decision actually triggered the enemy fleet's massive approach that could have completed the sneak attack mission in advance, forcing the enemy to take the risk of airdropping into Medusa's atmosphere without any stability in their retreat.

But there are always two sides to every coin, and luck was not all on the side of the Gorgon's descendants this time.

At this critical moment, they were unable to fully mobilize the forces of the three accused clans, especially the extremely powerful Lakuan clan company. Even their flying fortress was not here, which was not very favorable for the strategy they wanted to implement. According to the intelligence sent back, the invaders had the forces of two plague warbands and one plague company, as well as very, very, very many plague vehicles and auxiliary forces of the Unliving.

It was obvious that the invaders had no intention of returning empty-handed.

At first, when the Iron Hands defenders first came into contact with the enemy, things seemed to be within the scope of being resolvable.

A powerful armored cluster painted in black and steel served as the spearhead, with the Medusa Auxiliary Army as the supporting force, and the recruits of the three absent clans and the recruits and officers of the Dovk clan mixed in. The Vulgan and Gesaka clans were responsible for providing precise and sufficient fire support, and more armored troops driven by the Iron Hands' exclusive modified servitors were being sent to the battlefield.

The destructive shells and high-temperature weapon flames burned mercilessly and accurately the ground that had strangely changed from rocks and black sand to muddy and wet swamps as the blasphemous invaders landed, drying them into soil again and plowing up the gurgling mud, and then pouring abundant volleys of fire on them again.

Those believers of the Plague God huddled in their landing site, seemingly unable to raise their heads and fight back for a while because of the barrage of bullets that was like pouring water.

However, the Iron Hands' Computational Magi and prophetic institutions such as the Simulacrum Sanctum issued an extremely strong, almost shrieking, data warning to every Iron Hands decision-maker at a moment when it seemed that they were about to reap the fruits of victory.

The ground and positions that were instigated by the Plague of Corruption were still silent. Apart from the psychic defenses and void shields, there were no signs of large-scale artillery fire or bombing. The observation points at the spearheads could even see some of their tall figures.

Some Chaos Astartes were wearing white armor that looked like dead flesh. Apart from the oil stains flowing from the joints, they did not seem to have any signs of being blessed by the plague as commonly believed. However, some Chaos Space Marines facing them with strange weapons were more "normal" and neat. They could even see the... polish on the surface of those dark green shoulder armor?
Suddenly, the sensors on the front line showed that something, some substance, was "flowing" towards the defenders' ranks at a leisurely but steady pace.

Under Medusa's eternally dark sky, optical and infrared observations alone could not make out what it was, but ion lightning exploding in the clouds then illuminated the green, turbid smoke of acid droplets for everyone to see.

They had unknowingly approached the first row of auxiliary soldiers.

As a local defense force with a forge, the Medusa Auxiliary Army is well-equipped, and the level of mechanical modification of their bodies is also astonishingly high. In theory, their combat and endurance far exceeds that of ordinary defense forces, and can almost reach the combat and defense level of some basic crusaders.

However, the infectiousness and corrosiveness of these strangely blessed gases still prove themselves to be beyond the greatest vicious imagination of all normal humans.

In just a short period of ten to twenty seconds, the highly toxic acid began to corrode the metal, rubber and other pipes layer by layer from the surface, seeping into any gaps, especially dissolving the skin and flesh and blood organs. After only another ten seconds, those who were unfortunate enough to come into contact with it first were left with only a pool of indistinguishable mud wrapped around their rotten bones and mechanical prostheses.

The chemical acid mist released by the Purifiers came into contact with mortal soldiers and armored vehicles, and immediately corroded any weak links in defense, then invaded the circulatory systems of mortals and servitors. The trachea, lips, and lungs were immediately dissolved, and the bloody acid flowing from the corroded areas continued to flow throughout the body like a plague, causing severe destruction and dissolution. The dissolved tissue mixed with blood flowed out from the mouth and nose of the human body - regardless of whether he still had self-awareness. The skin disappeared in pieces, and bright red muscles dripped like candle wax. Pale fresh bones stood out glaringly from the bright red color.

At the edge of the poisonous gas cloud where it was not so dense, the armored vehicles' defenses could still hold them over until they began to retreat, but in places where the acid mist was denser or where the armor was not so thick, all living things disappeared quietly in the green nightmare-like cloud, leaving only a bunch of wriggling, acidic steam-emitting mud of flesh, bones, and metal on the black lava gravel ground of Medusa.

The roar of the demon engine, like the wheezing of a consumptive man, came through the poisonous fog, and the rotten and decayed armored vehicles of the Death Guards who had been on standby in the back row for a long time began to roll over the silent no-man's land.

On the contact front where there is now no living creature, the Death Guard's first wave of attack on the Iron Hands homeworld officially began.

(End of this chapter)