The Emperor’s Angel of Death

Although many corpses remained below the city, the gun-worms began to retreat, receding from the wall like a tide.

Some people cheered, but Hayes knew it wasn't over. Something was rapidly approaching the stronghold through the yellow toxic fog. It was a group of mutant blade-worms protected by relatively thick armor. Under the cover of the gun-worms, they headed straight for the city walls, stepping on the piles of corpses. Then, with a flea-like leap from their hind legs, and opening their short, stubby insect wings, they practically flew onto the wall.

"Jumpers! They're jumpers!"

Someone immediately screamed. This new type of Tyranid had only started appearing a few days ago, and almost always brought death. They were the soldiers' most hated opponents, second only to the flying ripper-worms.

Conversely, larger units would have dedicated personnel and firepower to deal with them, so they didn't have to worry about them.

Only these jumpers could leap directly onto the ramparts. Moreover, their armor was quite thick, and a laser gun couldn't kill them with just one or two shots, while their close-quarters combat was extremely deadly.

It could be said that these days, thousands of casualties were mainly caused by them, and it was precisely because of these reasons that they had to abandon the first defensive wall and move to the higher second defensive wall, and blow up the previous position to prevent it from becoming a cover for the enemy's attack.

"Everyone! Prepare for close-quarters combat!"

Several of these jumpers had jumped onto Hayes's position. One of them spotted him immediately, and two deadly dagger-like claws extended.

Fortunately, he reacted in time, directly raising his chainsword to slash at it. The serrated teeth made a sharp noise as they cut through the chitinous shell. Then, Little Fitton's shot hit the creature's eye. As it roared in pain, Hayes stepped forward, raised the chainsword, and slammed it down, right into the alien's head, deeply embedding it amidst the flying shell fragments and flesh. Then, with a forceful swing of his arm, he threw the thing off the wall.

But another jumper pounced on him. Hayes fired two shots at it, forcing the creature to abort its jump, then rushed over and cut the chainsword into its carapace.

The alien's thick blood splattered on Hayes's helmet visor. Its disgusting smell almost made Hayes gag, but then something slammed heavily into his back, knocking him down.

"Captain!"

"Uncle!"

It was another jumper that had leaped up from below the wall. Hayes could feel its hot breath on his neck, but before it could bite down, Little Fitton rushed over in time and kicked the jumper in the back. As the opponent was knocked over, he stabbed his bayonet into the jumper's head. Hayes also immediately got up and cleaved open the jumper's abdomen, causing the foul entrails to spill all over the ground.

"Ahhhhh!"

Hayes suddenly heard a scream and turned to see Moore knocked to the ground. This was a nineteen-year-old boy whose battalion was less than four miles away from Hayes's battalion. His parents had four children, and he was the second oldest, but now this boy might never return, because half of his face had been torn apart by a vicious claw. The bug was lying on top of him, frantically gnawing.

"You son of a bitch!"

Enraged, Hayes stabbed the chainsword into its soft belly, then kicked it away and went over to forcefully chop it twice.

"It's okay! Moore! It's okay—"

As a medic, Little Fitton frantically opened his medical kit, but such an injury was beyond his capabilities. The other person's blood splattered all over him, and he was still trembling as he tried to stuff hemostatic gel into the huge wound on the other person's face, but the other person's entire skull had been pried open, and even the beating brain could be seen.

Moore, with half his face missing, cried out in his death throes, and after a dozen seconds, there was no more movement.

"He's dead, go save others!"

Hayes kicked the somewhat dazed Little Fitton, and then another serrated claw swung towards his stomach, but Hayes successfully cut off the claw with the chainsword, and the laser pistol hit one of its eyes.

At this time, the battle on the ramparts had entered a fever pitch. The soldiers had become accustomed to how to respond. They gathered into combat groups in squads, using shotguns and flamethrowers and other heavy weapons while maintaining distance from each other, and attacking the jumpers that appeared in the narrow terrain, while others covered the heavy weapons handlers.

Hayes kicked his opponent off the ramparts. He gasped for breath, but all around were alien roars, scorching air, waving claws and fangs, and a lot of blood, dirt, and internal organs stuck to the walkway.

After only a dozen minutes, his arms felt like they were filled with lead, and his brain couldn't process information, and could only continue fighting on instinct. If it weren't for the mechanical prosthetics, he probably wouldn't be able to wield the chainsword.

If things were as usual, such an impact would probably only last a dozen minutes, and the Tyranids would retreat, but today seemed a little different.

Even during the lulls in the fighting, Hayes saw new troops constantly climbing up from the stairs behind, including Pushiti elite in segmented heavy armor.

Soon, the artillery fire from the rear also became intense, and the density of fire increased. The exploding artillery wind temporarily blew away the toxic smoke, allowing Hayes to see the true scene.

Countless gun-worms and blade-worms were charging. Behind them were warrior-worms, their four upper limbs covered with various deadly melee weapons. They were also climbing forward, their purple bony joints and chitinous shells covered with dirty scars, and behind them were towering executioners. These executioners seemed to have undergone special evolution, and could use their limbs to crawl on steep mountain bodies, with rows of holes in their backs that launched chitinous spikes.

Further back, there seemed to be even more terrifyingly large outlines.

Hayes's eyes widened, and then he heard the roar in the sky. It was the sound of a Stormtalon squadron passing by.

"General attack this is a general attack!"

Accompanying Hayes's muttering, countless rockets and bombs exploded on the Tyranid's path of attack, but hardly stopped them at all.

When the light of the explosion reflected in their eyes, it seemed as if countless shining balls of light were reflected back. Those eyes were like dead things, with no emotion in them, nothing at all, not even hunger. Even that was not in the eyes of these alien races that devoured entire planets.

Hayes realized for the first time that there might not even be such a thing as consciousness in them.

They were just weapons, living weapons.

"What is that!"

Suddenly, Little Fitton's voice awakened him. Hayes turned his head to look and saw huge flying machines landing in the stronghold.

"Spectre Valkyries."

This transport aircraft, called Spectre, is a super-large variant of the Valkyrie, used to transport vehicles and light artillery, with 4 engines and a cargo hold that can accommodate a large amount of equipment and personnel.

Hayes's eyes flashed, realizing what was happening.

"They're probably going to retreat."