Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 443 Iron Warriors Demonic Factory on Medrungard (4K6)
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"Eat something, sir."

Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Leonid leaned against the shadow of a dirty piece of machinery. If it weren't for the slight rise and fall of his chest, he would have been almost indistinguishable from a corpse covered in mineral dust and coal ash.

The lieutenant colonel's legs were spread apart and lay lifeless on the ground, his hands hung at his sides and his head was also lowered.

His originally sky blue dragoon uniform was so stained with oil and dust that its original color was almost unrecognizable. It was worn out. His once neat golden hair was now disheveled and sparse, having turned gray and dry due to the repeated torture of poison from friendly forces, malnutrition from the enemy, and extreme fatigue.

"You must eat something, sir."

It was his adjutant, Elad, who carefully brought him a little of the dark, thin, turbid nutrient soup mixed with the sweatshop floor with his rough hands. The sergeant looked at the highest-ranking prisoner among the living prisoners with the same exhausted and bloodshot eyes.

"What are you going to do with it, Sergeant?"

"Stay alive, sir."

Lieutenant Colonel Leonid felt a new wave of fatigue and dizziness hit him, and he subconsciously licked his cracked, dry lips.

"But we didn't live long anyway, Elad. Do you remember what Captain Eshara told us? Those Mechanicus bastards deceived all of us. Those carcinogenic drugs... If there hadn't been an invasion, we would have died much later as they planned."

"I know, sir. But we are members of the noble and indomitable Jouran 383rd Dragoons Regiment. Sir, you must eat something, rise, lead us to live, and resist, escape, and revenge."

"Resistance, revenge? Who? Rely on them?" Leonid seemed amused. He raised a thin arm and pointed with his coal-stained finger at the hellish scene that was happening behind Sergeant Elad and had happened countless times.

In the huge forging workshop filled with high-temperature steam and toxic exhaust gas, the main engine roaring with enormous power is being driven by the rage of a huge bound demon.

Under the gaze of the demon's scarlet eyes like fireballs, the driven forging hammers and machine tools were panting, emitting steam and black smoke. The furnace full of bright molten iron opened its fiery red mouth with steel teeth and iron jaws, and an unburned human limb was still hanging between its teeth.

The alien runes etched on the ground that emitted energy fluctuations formed a huge formation, binding the red demon inside the engine, making its power the main driving energy source for the entire forging factory.

In the distance, a tall and brutal monster was patrolling back and forth. He was wearing black iron power armor with yellow and black stripes painted on the dark steel. His roar sounded more like a harsh mechanical noise. Smelly black grease seeped out from every joint of his power armor, and those hideous-looking and excessive hoses burst from time to time with his steps, spewing out hissing steam.

Even as they watched him, the Iron Warriors slaver was using his chainsaw axe to chop a slave who had fallen to the ground and blocked his way into two pieces, and throwing the latter, who no longer had the strength to wail, into the mouth of the demon forge that was constantly spewing out bright red boiling steel.

Anyway, there are still a lot of slaves, slaves are everywhere.

There is never a shortage of supplies for the labor in the dark forge run by the Iron Warrior Obex Zakajul.

If a hundred slaves were lacking, a thousand could be found to fill their places, and the same cycle repeated for the thousand who died, and the forge would burn forever.

Those who were dead or alive were either fed to the demons early on and turned into firewood or some raw materials, or like Leonid and Elad, they drank thin nutritious soup at the feet of the mutant foreman every day, worked until death in the forging workshop, and slowly consumed themselves in hunger and exhaustion until one day they fell to the ground and died.

There were perhaps three thousand captives of the Yoran Dragoon Regiment who had survived the battle at the Heart of the Hydra and were driven aboard the dark Chaos barges to this demonic planet with a black sun, but Leonid didn't know how many of them were left now. However, not all the slaves in this forge were Yorans, at least not those who were snatching food.

The lieutenant colonel and sergeant in the shadows saw the Iron Warrior bastard turn his head and walk towards them. The Chaos Warrior's mechanical arm extended a long whip filled with evil energy and lashed at the other slaves surrounding the trough. He used his loudspeaker to shout at these lazy bones to get to work quickly, otherwise he would throw them to feed the demons - while the latter were busy snatching the thin and turbid nutrient soup in the troughs that were dragged over.

The slaves wailed and tried their best to avoid the slave owners' whips. They squirmed their bodies and gathered like livestock around the three bulldozers that were dragging the troughs. They fought for the rotten liquid residues and even murdered their former co-workers.

They turned their gaze away from the slaves.

"So, will you stand up and lead us in revenge? Or will you give up, sir?" Sergeant Elad still held the nutritious soup in his hands. Some liquid dripped from between his fingers into the black gray soil on the ground and immediately disappeared without a trace. He stared closely at the man in front of him who was once the deputy commander of the fortress.

Leonid straightened up weakly and stretched out his sore hands to take the handful of semi-fermented soup that smelled like a sewer from the sergeant.

He took a quick glance and found that there was a layer of grease floating on top and even some solid matter at the bottom, but the lieutenant colonel decided that he didn't want to know and shouldn't think about what material these solid matter, which might be pieces of meat, came from.

"You are right, Elad. The glorious Yoran Dragoons never give up, except in death."

Frowning, Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Leonid of the 383rd Yolan Dragoon Regiment lowered his head and drank the soup in his hand in one gulp, and resisted the feeling of his stomach churning and wanting to vomit it out along with the gastric mucosa.

Perhaps it was Sergeant Elad's unusual behavior that attracted the attention of the Iron Warriors. The black iron monster emitting heat strode towards them, and the rest of the slaves parted ways in fear.

"how?"

This monster, this monster who had fallen into Chaos and was once a warrior of the Emperor, leaned over, his full-face armor hissing out hot air that smelled like burnt protein from the gaps. Leonid could not see the other's eyes at all. There was only a glimmer of something like the fire of a forge or the light from the bloody mouth of a demon, peeking at the loyal Yolans from behind.

The lieutenant colonel's eyes were darting wildly in their sockets, and stimulated physiological tears were flowing from his eyes - a normal mortal simply could not look directly at the tainted eyepiece for too long, just like all the crazy things on this planet and the black abnormal sun could not be looked at directly for too long.

"You don't have to rob food, someone will bring it to you." The Chaos Iron Warrior glanced at Sergeant Elad, then turned to Leonid. "Are you the leader of this group?" "I used to be their deputy commander." He didn't say what happened to his commander. May his chief Paster Woben and other colleagues rest in peace beside the throne of the God-Emperor. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid found that he couldn't deny that he envied them who had died in battle a few months ago.

The Iron Warrior let out a laugh that seemed to be amused, and the slave master's voice grid was mixed with the harsh crackle of static electricity. "And you, have become our captive, slave. In front of the Blood God, the honor of a fellow like you is worthless. You and your rank are only fit to be fed to machines."

The lieutenant colonel's courage, which was originally like a smoldering coal, was blown up by anger and hatred again when the other party insulted his legion and honor. He dared to mock him in front of a Chaos Space Marine who was taller than him. He tried his best to straighten his painful and screaming joints, clenched his fists with muscles swollen like fire, and stared at the other party's forehead. "That's better than becoming a half-human and half-ghost like you. You are not even as good as a little finger of the Yoran warrior!"

However, Obex Zakaju seemed a little proud, as if he felt that such a direct and positive offense was a kind of affirmation for him.

"Ha! Boy! Not bad, you have some courage. Perhaps you should join us! The God of War would like guys like you. Look, what He has given me! An immortal body and great power! And look at you! You are so weak now, and as long as you... something!"

The slave owner turned his head in time, but the thumping of the factory's huge forging hammers, the creaking of machinery, and other deafening noises masked the attacker's close enough presence to successfully carry out his sneak attack.

The tip of a steel hammer, as thick as if it had been planned in advance, hit the Chaos Astartes' helmet with a dull sound like a falling stone, interrupting the Iron Warrior's next words.

Through the tear-blurred corners of Leonid's eyes he saw several thin, ghostly figures flash by the edge of his vision. They seemed familiar, and he vaguely recognized the sky blue color of their uniforms covered in dust.

The lieutenant colonel leapt back two steps in the joy of hatred - the Chaos Iron Warrior who had been ambushed actually knelt down on one knee, as if he had been stunned for a moment by the blow.

At the same time, he also realized that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to escape.

"Open the door! Kill them!" the lieutenant colonel shouted at the crowd with all his might. At the same time, because he was shouting too hard, the stinking thing he had just eaten was almost vomited out of his nostrils. The severe pain of cancer swept through his internal organs, but he held back.

Sergeant Elad moved faster than him. The thin but still strong man squeezed out the last of his strength, roaring as he ran, asking any prisoners with vehicle driving skills to drive the tracked molten steel transporters.

The Yolan attackers cheered in victory and responded to their commander. These huge guys, weighing dozens of tons when fully loaded, were their only hope to break through the gate that was closed by the mutant overseers.

The anger and hatred accumulated from months or even years of living in fear, torture and abuse at the hands of the powerful erupted like a volcano, causing many other slaves here to immediately recover from their numbness after a brief surprise and join the crowd seeking revenge or trying to escape. They began to rush towards the mutant overseers wearing rubber breathing masks, attacking and tearing each other apart frantically with simple work tools, fingers and teeth until their shapes could hardly be distinguished.

The captives and slaves, who looked as skinny as starving corpses, waved their branch-like arms and legs, bursting out with unprecedented strength, and rushed towards the forge and the workshop door. Leonid was pleased to see that it was the Yolan captives who cleverly formed a team and tried to drive the fully loaded molten steel transfer tank trucks, while the other slaves could not wait to rush towards the gate of the Demon Factory.

He was also preparing to start running to support and lead his soldiers - suddenly his heart tightened because of what he witnessed, almost suffocating him instantly - the lieutenant colonel saw with horror that the Chaos Iron Warrior, who had been hit hard on the head so hard that the head in the helmet should have been deformed by a normal person, had stood up again and began to sneer from under his hot visor -

"NO!!!! STOP!!!!!!" Leonid let out a desperate shout and threw himself desperately at the slave master who had begun to raise his arm full of cables and hoses.

Although severely twisted, what the latter raised on his wrist must be a Space Marine-sized twin-linked bolter. The flame spitting out from the muzzle was more than a foot long. As the slave master moved at an angle, it was like a sickle formed by flames and metal, wantonly reaping the lives of rebels and escapees in the demon factory workshop where there was nowhere to escape.

Large pieces of blood and minced meat instantly covered the entire workshop like splattered paint. The engines, machines and lathes seemed even happier after being watered with fresh blood and flesh. The imprisoned demon watched the chaos in its cage, laughing wildly, and encouraging Obex to offer more blood and soul to it and its master.

As the slaves scattered in all directions, seeking shelter from the deadly storm of revenge, the Lieutenant Colonel was grabbed by the throat by the Chaos Slave Master's other iron hand and lifted up so that he could see the panoramic view of this one-sided massacre more clearly and desperately.

"Watch carefully! Slaves! I am unhappy!" the Iron Warrior roared, "There are many of your people here! They fight for you! And I want you to watch them die for you!"

"No--!!!!" Tears and sweat mixed together, blurring and stinging Leonid's eyes again. He saw that the heads of the soldiers who had just climbed onto the driver's seats were gone, and the body contents of some people were almost evenly "spread" on some lathes and anvils.

But the brave Yolan vehicle driving team had achieved their goal. A fully loaded tank truck rushed out of the transport track under the inertia of the last step on the accelerator and rushed to the center of the forging factory.

Realizing what was about to happen, Obex roared loudly, dropped his captive, and rushed towards the forge engine.

But it was too late. Under the huge impact of weight and inertia, the fence outside the engine began to bend and deform, and then the tanker overturned.

The tank broke, and scorching molten steel poured out, instantly vaporizing anyone around who didn't have time to avoid it into a wisp of green smoke. Then, amid the Iron Warrior's exasperated curses, it flowed onto the rune formation on the ground, destroying the etched spells one by one by the molten steel.

The demon was released. In an instant, the dark, indescribable creature swept across the entire factory workshop. It was ancient, hungry, and fed on fear, pain, and hatred. The unborn stretched out its claws like black motor oil, and instantly turned the approaching humans into charred remains of flesh and bones. Screams and desperate groans filled the place. The ground was full of hot molten iron. The demons roared in the sky and sucked souls. This scene became more and more like a living hell. Lieutenant Colonel Leonid screamed in his heart for the blessing of the God-Emperor, while desperately looking for Sergeant Elad and others.

Because the slave owner had just hurriedly run deep into the factory, there were no guards at the gate now. These few seconds could be the difference between life and death.

He coughed and pressed his injured throat, while crouching and rushing towards the door, and was relieved to see Elad running towards him from his hiding place. There was no time to call everyone, so as many as possible escaped.

When they pushed the door open together, their eyes were hurt by the abnormally burning and pale light of the sky outside.

Lieutenant Colonel Leonid suddenly realized that perhaps there had never been a right time.

A neat team of Iron Warriors stood silently outside the door, holding weapons and staring coldly through their eyepieces at the open door of the Demon Factory and the slaves inside.

(End of this chapter)