Warhammer: Start with a dog.

Chapter 447 Hong Suo was ignored again, which might be a blessing (4K8)
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Uriel Ventress first spent about ten minutes in the wardroom explaining the orders he and Pasanius had received during the trial in Hera Fortress.

During this time, Soltan re-issued a series of orders and used his power on the spot to build a new rock defense position behind the smoke bombs for the soldiers and crews who were asked to stand by again at the front line.

"Despite the smoke bomb, I still doubt that Tolamino can detect something. After all, he has always been the most cunning among us and the one who is good at forming alliances with demons." Soltan did not move under the scorching gaze of the Blood Raven Think Tank. Instead, he explained to Uriel, Jeffer, Leonid and others, "I didn't want to expose my ability so quickly. It will be very useful as a surprise trick when dealing with Tolamino's group."

"You don't sound very fond of your former companions, the stonemasons," Pasanius said angrily, almost with a hint of resentment. "You have been with them for ten thousand years, but there is no brotherhood at all?"

"We were callous, Pausanius, very callous." Thortarn shook his head. "Many of us put our own ambitions before relationships and brotherhood. Perhaps that is why we fell apart. When our father no longer wanted to lead us, we lived out our lives like a group of blind stragglers. Those who did not became champions of some Chaos God or even Daemon Princes."

The term Demon Prince clearly brought back some bad memories for the mortal officers in the room who were qualified to be present. Commander Leonid shifted his posture uncomfortably, then exclaimed when Uriel mentioned the Omphalos spirit and the Honsou they had encountered.

"Hun Suo?" The lieutenant colonel almost collapsed. "You said you met a pharmacist who saved you - is that what you mean by doctor?! What's his name? Hong Suo? Master of Pharmacy? Isn't he a war blacksmith?!"

"The pharmacist brothers are not only responsible for medical duties, but also for the new blood of our regiment. Warsmith?" This word undoubtedly has a kind of magic. Uriel looked around the room and found that those warriors who were not Iron Warriors nodded.

Brother Wolf grinned, his voice full of dust and ice cracks, like the low roar of a lone Fenrisian wolf in the desert. "Warsmith is the title of the Lord of the Great Company or Warband of the Iron Warriors. Honso is the former master of the fortress of Kalan-Gol, the most powerful and cruelest warsmith on Medrungard."

"How could he be a good man who saves the dying and the wounded?! How is that possible?! Not to mention that he is a doctor! If he is a doctor... Oh my God! I still remember how those respectable warriors died... He was the cold-blooded devil who led the Iron Warriors into our fortress and took over everything after the Demon Prince killed Captain Eshara! This devil! I will never forget the massacre in front of the inner gate that day until I die! And Captain Eshara! We... We failed to complete the task he entrusted to me... Those gene seeds..." Lieutenant Colonel Leonid knelt down, tears in his eyes, muttering to himself, "Oh, God, Emperor, please forgive me, please bless me, I fought side by side with a group of demons just to kill another group of demons..."

"Wait." All the Space Marines here, no matter whether they were loyal or corrupt, the words that came out of this mortal's mouth obviously touched the nerves of all the Astartes who still had reason.

"What did you just say? Gene-seed? How does a mortal know the term?"

Lieutenant Colonel Leonid raised his face from his agony, tears staining the front of his sky-blue uniform. "It was the order given to us by Captain Eshara. At that time, there were only a few Imperial Fists fighters left. We, we also discovered the betrayal of the Mechanicus... That terrible thing revealed to us that they were going to use gene seeds for blasphemous purposes, so Captain Eshara told me to destroy all gene seed freezers. We ran down, but there were too many... There were too many down there... We were too few and our firepower was not enough. We were too late..."

"Wait, a lot of gene-seeds? A lot? Why would such a large stockpile of such precious gene-seeds be stored beneath your fortress? You said it's usually guarded by mere mortals? How come I've never heard of a storage location for something this important?"

"I don't know. But being guarded by mortals... is not a good thing. Damn the Mechanicus." A trace of pain once again climbed onto Lieutenant Colonel Leonid's sickly face. He coughed, and a fresh smell of blood mixed with the smell of internal organ disease penetrated into the detection nerves of every Astartes present. Only when his cough subsided could he continue to speak, "Captain Eshara and I discovered the conspiracy under the fortress... It was all a conspiracy! Betrayal! The Mechanicus betrayed us! Betrayed millions of loyal lives!"

Uriel and Pasanius looked at each other in shock at what they heard, and the others didn't look much better, with Soltarn narrowing his eyes and Seraface letting out a sneer.

"Let's get to the point. What's going on with the gene seed? Lieutenant Colonel, this is very important and may affect our subsequent rearrangement of the fortress attack plan!" The old stonemason finally shouted, and at the same time, a wave of mental power as stable as a rock spread from him, covering the room. The deep wrinkles on the face of the former Blood Raven Think Tank relaxed, and he let out an intoxicated sigh. "This is really amazing." The wolf brother next to him also looked less fluffy.

The dragoon commander sniffed and quickly calmed down. He apologized to them and began to recount what they had encountered in the deepest fortress of the Heart of Hydra. "...So that mechanical priest who was more disgusting than the deepest nightmare - I'm not sure when he betrayed us - told us that the fortress we were guarding was one of the few seed vaults in the galaxy where the Mechanicus itself stored a large number of frozen gene seeds, and that their invasion was to take away these seeds and make new Chaos Space Marines. And then...we were defeated, the respectable Captain Eshara and the Imperial Fists warriors were all killed, their bodies were desecrated, and we were slaves with these things - Honso should have brought us and the seeds to this place."

A series of curses and insults rose from the surrounding Astartes. The Crimson Fists' Kayama and other renegade members of the Imperial Fists were still particularly indignant - it was clear that the renegade still had some residual sense of honor left in their minds, just as Uriel had aroused.

"We can never allow this to happen!" someone shouted.

Uriel Ventress frowned as he pondered the latest information, and when his grey eyes met Soltarn's light blue eyes again, he knew that this mysterious former Iron Warrior and current Captain of the Second Company of the Silver Skull had the same idea as him.

"So," he said, "now, I begin to understand the meaning of Lord Tigris suddenly giving us this task on the eve of the judgment. You see, not long after we left our home planet, the evil spirit of Omphalos appeared and sent us to the Destiny Steel, where we saw... Then we came here and met Soltarn, and came together to attack the fortress of Kalan-Gol. Finally, at this critical moment, we heard this key information from an unexpected source. Everything is just right. We completed the journey across the galaxy in a very short time and arrived at the right place at the right time. Lord Tigris is undoubtedly a great prophet."

"Hmm." Soltan replied, "As for the problem of the prophet's ability, I think it's mainly because some of the prophet masters on the ship are not doing their job properly... But it is true. When all the coincidences come together, then things are not coincidences. Something must be happening."

"How come you still saw the ghost of Omphalos?" The former Blood Crow Librarian asked in surprise, "You boarded its blood-red train that uses corpses as fuel and whose train crews eat people, and you still survived?"

"Yes. This demon train has an extremely evil boiler and an evil operator... Judging from your expressions, do you all know the Omphalos ghost?"

"It is very famous in Medlengard because it is a well-known carrier responsible for transporting slaves and other things. In terms of the function of traveling through space, this demon and its locomotive are very efficient." Blood Raven shrugged, "It only consumes a few slaves every hundred light years, which is very cost-effective for the Iron Warriors."

Others looked at them with suspicion. "I've never heard of anyone riding it and coming off alive and well."

"That's because it crashed into Soltan's ship... and then it was destroyed... I think... as far as I know..."

Uriel then spent about an hour telling the follow-up story of their cosmic traffic accident.

The listeners present listened very carefully. During the process, Soltan was very patient and restrained. He accepted all kinds of looks from the traitors. At the same time, the normal layout of the operations room also left a deep impression on the traitors.

The Blood Raven Librarian used his rich dark knowledge to supplement the details of the incredible demons that Uriel and Leonid had seen. However, he did not know any further operations, such as how to summon or how to defeat them with spells. "If my knowledge had reached that point, I would not be standing here." He said sadly.

"I must say, although I really doubt that you are the Iron Warrior, the Thortan vor Bron we have heard about, but you smell so good at this close..."

The old stonemason glared at Svolgard who was getting closer and closer, "...Why do you smell a bit like the Emperor..." "The Emperor's warrior, right?" Thortan had to speak up to interrupt Gray Wolf's muttering, "That's possible. After all, our father is also the Emperor's biological son. Now that we are no longer enslaved by Chaos, we always smell different. And you can't find any other similar warriors here to refer to except us, right?"

"Your father...? But didn't the Lord of Steel already..."

"Perhaps we should take a good rest before the battle." Thortann did not give him a chance to continue. "How about going to our cafeteria to have a good meal, then repair your power armor, and then return to Wo to revise our attack plan?"

"Canteen? What a new term. I haven't heard of it in decades." The hungry defectors were slightly cheered up by this proposal.

"Come on, my guests. Although this is not the Iron...Destiny Steel, I will still do my best to restore the level there."

————The meaningless laughter of birds——————

Finally, after the newcomers had had their fill of food and drink and their equipment repaired to their satisfaction, a new attack plan for the Kalan-Gol Fortress was re-determined under the auspices of Soltarn, with Uriel Ventress as the main staff officer.

In order to personally carry out and confirm with his own eyes the completion of their death oath mission, Uriel Ventress also devised a surprising strategy for the defenders - Soltarn said that this somewhat "despicable" tactic was something a veteran Iron Warrior like Tolamino would never expect the attackers to do, because the intelligence he received was that the attacker he was facing was Soltarn, who was "also" an Iron Warrior.

Even though Tolamino had always been good at power struggles and intrigues in the original Fourth Legion, the Iron Legion's combat experience was to never retreat, but to advance inch by inch and confront inch by inch - even in siege warfare, such tactics were actually quite rigid today.

So it's only natural that this stealth raid mission was proposed by a former Ultramarines Captain - the man who was expelled from his own Chapter after all.

The plan was simple in summary: Soltarn's army and siege engines would attract the attention of the defenders in front of the fortress of Caran-Gol and launch a tentative attack, while Uriel Ventress would lead this mixed team, including himself and Pasanius, twenty-nine Space Marines from various chapters, through a narrow path known only to the most agile and daring scouts among these traitors, approaching the fortress and trying to sneak into it.

"Any attempt to go too deep into this fortress or even just its defensive walls would be essentially a suicide mission," said the mysterious green-armored battle-brother who had offered them this path.

Now, having finally reached the foot of the sharp, towering mountain where the fortress of Kalan-Gol stood, and having observed the fortress more closely and clearly, Uriel understood the heavy meaning of his words.

The fortress that Tolamino now rules is a nightmare of blood-coagulated stone, twisted, roaring darkness, and sharp teeth pointing to the sky, screams and the sound of the combustion chamber of the forge flames, and the heartbeat of a entrenched dragon that makes this huge fortress sound like a living thing - if you listen carefully, you will find that it is the rhythmic sound of hammers falling continuously driven by an unknown energy source.

The fortress has a group of towering spires that are unreasonable in number and degree of anti-physical law, like the claws of a howling beast stabbing into the sky. Relying on these spires, they have more halls in the air and flying beams connecting various places that look extremely dangerous. The entire fortress and its surroundings are filled with various movements caused by the torture of machines and creatures. Every wall looks scarred, fresh and hungry, and the bottom of all these buildings is shrouded in supernatural smoke. Even the enhanced eyes of Astartes will feel very uncomfortable if they stare at any one of them for too long.

In short: a dark and massive demon fortress-factory complex that towers over a literal hell flowing with fire and demons.

The place where they set out had already begun to hear sporadic artillery test firings: the golden-red explosions were like waves embellishing the edge of the black-red hell. This meant that they had to hurry up, because the longer Soltarn, as the siege party, waited, the more disadvantages he would suffer.

He looked around again.

Everyone, including Pasanius, had a look on their face that showed they knew their goal.

That's good, the value of death should be chosen by the dying person himself.

"We don't have a priest, but now we can start our last prayers."

Uriel placed his weapon on the ground and began to pray.

"Pray to what? To the All-Father? I haven't been a warrior of the All-Father for a long time." asked Volsgard.

Uriel opened the seal and pulled his rosary from his collar, the pendant dangling in the air.

The former Blood Raven Librarian watched it in fascination.

"This is a blessing from a saint. If you don't know who to pray to, you can pray to it. It's better than praying to the wrong person."

The Wolf Brother let out a laugh, "I like your idea, Uriel Ventress!"

The small transparent crystal ball pendant is stuffed with a ball of black and white hair. It looks like someone once tried to make it into an animal but it has become blurry due to long running and shaking.

"Okay... Then let's see if you, the furry god, can bless us and our weapons' machine souls." The green-armored veteran next to him, who had half of his face missing and replaced with metal, also laughed, "I haven't had my weapon's machine soul for a long time... Eh?"

(End of this chapter)