How can a retired savior be considered retired if he drops to 40,000?

After accepting the new mission, he calmly walked through the blood and broken limbs. The bodies left behind by the dead creatures of the Warp would only be transformed into the invisible power of chaos, and after merging into the Warp, they would wait to condense and take shape one day in the future. Therefore, the blood river and the desecrated pieces of flesh on the ground were obviously not from the devil.

After this battle, the mortal servants on the ship had to be replenished on a large scale before the entire system could operate at normal efficiency again. And these crew members who died in the unexpected disaster obviously did not have a peaceful end. These sacrifices should naturally be counted on the enemy, but it still makes people feel uncomfortable.

Enkidu sighed and turned to leave this place full of blasphemous symbols and spells. He walked out from the side of the most filthy altar and headed towards the nearest think tank. He walked towards the cleaner ground step by step, while resetting his spiritual foundation. The golden particles composed of ether slowly drifted away, and the blood and filth that had originally stained his body immediately disappeared. When he walked in front of the think tank, his white and gold robe had become spotless again, and it was even more holy.

"The order I received is to guide the remaining troops back to the middle-level command room to report again, treat the wounded, and re-program the data link and command system." He said to the other party with a normal expression, "But we do have to clean up the battlefield. At least we have to 'clean up' this place, otherwise no one knows whether this place will attract something from the subspace and cause the enemy to emerge again."

"...That's natural. The Iron Hand already has a countermeasure." The think tank said in a flat and dry tone.

Such a reaction did not convince Enkidu. He could clearly see that the other party had a lot of doubts in his heart, and he understood that these doubts must exist, but he did not understand why the other party did not choose to ask them out loud.

So he suggested: "There is still some time before the whole team really starts to move. If you have any questions about the current situation, I am also happy to answer them. Proper communication is also good for enhancing the trust of both parties."

After a pause of a little over a second, the think tank came straight to the point and asked a question that Enkidu didn't think would come up immediately: "What exactly are you?"

This question, which was not in line with the basic principles of social interaction, did surprise him a little, but it was not offensive at the edge of a battlefield where efficiency was life. Enkidu thought for a moment about the words that would be more understandable to the people here, and spoke in a warm and friendly manner:

"If I were to define myself as the one who is here now, I am a special subspace entity created by the summoner, with a body made of ether." He chose his words carefully, "This woven body itself is just a medium that can conveniently carry my functions and consciousness projection. I am not such a thing. I am just a copy projected here in this form."

These words obviously caused some brainstorming in the think tank. He paused for a moment, and then continued to ask without giving up: "So, what exactly are you?"

Enkidu couldn't fathom the point of his opponent's fixation on this question (rather than the obviously more serious present situation). But he answered the question anyway:

"I am a weapon made by God." Rather than a "realm record tape", Enkidu was describing his own existence. "Although I look similar to humans, this part is an acquired modification. My main task is still to exercise my function as a weapon. If I change it to a more common term here..."

Enkidu thought for a few seconds, then made a shocking statement without any hesitation:

"Iron Man, I guess." He had no idea what a bad metaphor he was using. "Although I'm not a machine made by humans like Iron Man, I'm similar to him in many ways. It should be okay to understand it this way?"

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 57 Where Did the Energy Go?

The main power room has six entrances and exits. Regardless of whether this ship called the Destruction Claw was originally designed like this, it is normal for it to become like this after being contaminated by Slaanesh.

Konrad Curze let go of his hand, letting Malkan Ferros' heavy body fall to the ground uncontrollably. He had not committed any serious crimes in the past two hundred years, but had suffered many minor injuries. It was not these physical injuries that made him unable to move, but the mental shock - he was still barely able to maintain consciousness, which was a miracle achieved by combining the advantages of the Primaris Space Marines themselves and his own strong willpower.

The instigator didn't care about these trivial matters. The Primarch of the Night Lords was just thinking: Why did the original reactor inside the power room, that... "mutated demon engine", have nine animated metal tentacles extending from each entrance and exit?

The members of the Iron Hands were naturally aware that there was some Tzeentch power mixed in with this inexplicable attack. But for the crew of the Destroyer Claw, dealing with the hijacking of the main reactor, which was the lifeline of their survival, was obviously the highest priority. Which camp the enemy belonged to might be of some use in tactical handling and deployment, but not much, so the Iron Hands warriors did not delve deeper into this issue - even if they had this idea, their already small think tanks were almost all in the lower cabins, and they could not use psychic power to conduct deeper detection.

But as a crew member of the Storm's Edge, Coates obviously has some different views on this matter.

+"The Envoy of the Throne Blessed by Tzeentch", what do you think about the possibility of Slaanesh demons and Tzeentch being in league on this ship? +

When he was still in the Astronomican, Fujimaru Ritsuka had kept everyone in the dark about his connection to Tzeentch and the Well of Eternity, so he could naturally tease them about it - and this wasn't the first time.

Fujimaru Ritsuka's reaction to this was no reaction at all.

+I don't know. According to the crash course in demonology I took from the Emperor, although Tzeentch is hated by all other gods, if it is Slaanesh, as long as both of them think "this might be fun", the possibility of joining forces is quite high. +

She completely ignored the first title in her speech and directly started to answer the second question:

+Speaking of which, what happened to the main engine room? +

+The plasma reactor was transformed into a demon engine.+

+Hmm…Since this matter involves Tzeentch, let me ask one more question: Are you sure that is a demon engine? Is it something else that looks like a demon engine? +

+Iron Hands thinks so, I haven't checked carefully yet. +

+Check it out as quickly as possible - it would be strange if it is indeed a demon engine. +

+One minute. You can use this time to talk about your inferences. +

He made a gesture behind him to indicate "follow, advance and standby", then nonchalantly crossed the bunker line set up by the Iron Hands, and like a shadow, glided through the wide passage towards the door of the main power room.

+It's not really an inference, it just feels weird. +Fujimaru Ritsuka's tone was a little hesitant, +Enkidu went to the lower deck of the ship, where he found and destroyed a chaos ritual that was likely to have mixed the power of two gods at the same time. The information I got from the middle command room indicated that the main power room showed abnormalities after the lower deck had problems first. +

Sensing Curze's approach, the many animated tentacles that were dormant at the entrance also "awoke". These ugly creations, a fusion of machinery and human flesh and blood, showed a strange elegance when they stretched their bodies. At this distance, the Primarch's hearing could capture the sounds of fighting at the other five gates behind the wall, but when no one approached, the tentacles in front of him just lazily lay prone at the door, showing no desire to attack - even though he and Ferros had wasted a lot of time near the distant front.

It's like they don't really care about "corrupting the entire ship" but just "preventing others from entering the power room".

+Generally speaking, because this sequence is clearly strongly related, it should be considered that "the ritual on the lower level summoned the demon in the power room." But this is the subspace, and Geller's position is broken. Does the demon really need a ritual summoning with a large-scale blood sacrifice to come to the ship? Isn't the standard too high? +

Some sighing whispers began to float in the air, tender and lingering like the whispers of lovers, the rich musk and stench mixed into a nauseating smell, and it seemed that there were forbidden secrets and blasphemous knowledge crawling on the surface of the tentacles. The muzzles and gun ports were revealed in the surging flesh and blood, and the evil projectiles made of human bones and the rays formed by the aggregation of chaotic energy attacked Curze. When facing this kind of battle, the Astartes assault team had to stop and raise their shields for defense, but to the Primarch, this was completely an attack like a gentle breeze and drizzle.

Koz even had the mood to send a telepathic message while evading:

+I can't tell if you are judging others by your own experience. +I can't see clearly how he did it, but all the ranged attacks, even if they seemed to hit, just went straight through like hitting a phantom or the air. +After all, when you need to summon something, you never have any arrangement that can be called a "ritual". +

+…How can this be the same! +Fujimaru Ritsuka's voice sounded a little angry. +Besides, the fact that the plasma reactor was turned into a demon engine itself was also suspicious. +

A tentacle swept towards Curze with lightning speed, but he seemed to have expected it, and dodged it by just slightly turning sideways, and even carved several parallel deep wounds on it with his lightning claws. As a result, the tentacle emitted a scream that could drive a mortal crazy in an instant from the countless mouths that were integrated into its body surface, and even the Terminator team behind him was stopped for a moment, but Curze himself was not affected at all.

+How to say it? +

+Isn't the demon engine made by "melting demons into mechanical structures"? I have made similar things in the fantasy world, so I roughly know the principle. But, even if it is a demon, do you think they can enter the plasma reactor and control its mechanical structure? That is a plasma reactor, the main reactor that can drive a battle barge! The energy of the physical universe is undoubtedly energy. Even if the demon enters, can it still survive? +

Since the conversation was conducted directly with the spirit, telepathy was much more efficient than language itself in transmitting information. In the instant when this thought was transmitted and received by Curze, he had quickly used the lightning claws of mercy and forgiveness to completely dig out the screaming tentacles, and the sticky and smelly purple blood poured all over him. It was obviously tainted with chaos, but the Primarch disdained to pay attention.

This move obviously angered the enemy, and the remaining eight giant tentacles became more active, the waves of the warp surged, and the omnipresent power of chaos began to heal the damage suffered by the regenerated tentacles. At the moment when they began to dance wildly, the Terminator squad behind Curze began to provide support fire according to orders - using long-range weapons picked up from the Iron Hands.

+Aren't there also huge demon engines like Chaos Titans? Moreover, Chaos ships with demon engines seem to be quite common. +

Curze strode forward, and in the midst of the screaming tentacles' violent storm of attacks, the Primarch's huge body was as light as a falling leaf. He moved forward in a strange and unpredictable route, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, while his lightning claws wrapped in the disintegration field and the Emperor's psionic energy crushed the tentacles' obstacles like a hot knife cutting through butter, advancing as if he was in an empty space. The distance that was like a chasm for the Iron Hands commandos was flat ground in front of him.

+In that case, wouldn't it be faster and safer to start the corruption from the Cogitator array at the main console rather than from the main power source? +

+That’s true. +

As he spoke, he had already cut open the last layer of disgusting defense on the tentacles, used brute force to tear open the adamantine door that had already become blasphemous, and looked inside the power room.

+Your inference is correct. +

Fighting against demonic creations in the warp would almost always turn into an endless war of attrition, so Curze quickly retreated after a glimpse. And for the Primarch, that split second of glimpse was enough for him to see all the details clearly.

+Some Chaos Runes are visible inside, but the reactor itself is mostly intact.+

Koz immediately withdrew, and the Terminator team that received the order also slowly retreated while continuing to shoot. At this time, Fujimaru Ritsuka raised a new question:

+Now here comes a new question: If the plasma reactor is intact, then why is the ship barely able to operate on backup energy - where did the energy from the main power source go? +

+That's because——+

Curze himself stopped this intuitive inference. He originally thought that the massive offline of the ship's power system was because the Iron Hands themselves physically cut off all the energy transmission pipelines of the main power source. If we use normal logic to reverse the result, this will indeed cause energy supply problems - but is it really the case?

The reason they had to cut off all the energy transmission pipelines in such an extreme way was because Chaos corruption was spreading along the pipelines. In other words, if such extreme treatment had not been carried out, the entire Destruction Claw would probably have been completely corrupted by Chaos. At that time, the pipelines were obviously still outputting energy normally: the traces of safety accidents that Curze saw along the way, as well as Ferros's memories related to them, can confirm this.

——Then the problem came. Now that all the energy pipelines were cut off, the energy in the intact plasma reactor had nowhere to go, and it should have exceeded the shell's tolerance threshold and exploded. However, even in the glimpse that Koz just took into the main power room, he did not see any signs of the reactor being overloaded.

Where does the energy it outputs go?

There is another chapter at six o'clock. I will come slowly at my workstation.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 58 Why should I confront you head-on when I can get rid of the problem?

"Although the matter of the main power room is very important, don't forget that there is a... I don't know how to describe it, imprisoned on the upper floor of this ship."

Ritsuka Fujimaru gave this advice to the temporary commander who was currently in charge of the deployment of the entire ship, the adjutant Castimir Fish, one of the apprentices of the Iron Father Malkan Ferros.

The conversation went incredibly smoothly. Debbie simply took her into the control room, which was used as a temporary command room, and made a brief introduction between the two. After the adjutant checked the identification code in the Skyhawk Scepter, their conversation proceeded quickly and efficiently in a polite but distant atmosphere.

...This may also be because, for various security considerations, after weighing the pros and cons, those Night Lords Terminators were temporarily left outside the command center.

Anyway, Adjutant Fish nodded to her after hearing this, and a completely mechanical synthesized voice was played from his helmet: "Debbie Zem Woyd mentioned this to me."

Since Debit's suggestion was taken seriously, it proved that he was doing well on this ship. Although this had nothing to do with the most important thing to consider now, Fujimaru Ritsuka still felt relieved after realizing this.

"We don't know exactly what it is, but at least we can be sure that it is a Warp entity." She continued along her own train of thought, "In that case, we must not engage in battle with it in the Warp. The fact that the main power room could not be conquered for a long time has proved this. In the Warp, these demonic creations that can be replenished with Chaos energy at any time are too difficult to deal with."

Adjutant Fish agreed with this very much: "The Claw of Destruction is currently lacking power, but the Lion's Mane is doing fine. If the communication is smooth and the ships of both sides can coordinate accurately, they can use the tugboat method to leave the warp."

"I have already contacted the backup team, and the Lion's Mane should have started preparations." Fujimaru Ritsuka said, "There is a lot of interference in the subspace, but as long as the ships of both sides are close enough, they should be able to maintain communication through more specific psychic telepathy. The next suitable Mandeville point is not far away, so it shouldn't be difficult to actually do this, but the problem is, what kind of situation will we encounter after we jump out of the Mandeville point."

"I understand that the force currently preventing unknown warp entities from leaving the upper area of ​​the ship is also some kind of warp phenomenon that we do not yet understand," said Adjutant Fish.

He seemed to have known for a while that the upper areas had experienced space folding before Fujimaru Ritsuka mentioned it, but judging by his wording and emphasis, he was clearly trying to avoid the point: "I fully understand that after the ship leaves the warp, the above phenomenon will also be annihilated. However, after leaving the warp, the corresponding warp entities will also be weakened or even disappear directly. The Iron Hands Chapter will not fail on such a battlefield."

Perhaps the adjutant thought that Fujimaru Ritsuka, as the Emperor's personal envoy to the throne (or in other words, a judge with higher authority), would hold on to the unknown subspace phenomenon in the upper area, thus bringing more unnecessary trouble to the Chapter, which was why he avoided the issue. But he had no idea that the one who wanted to dodge the issue in this conversation was the envoy to the throne in front of him.

“…I have great faith in the Iron Hands’ abilities at this point, so that’s not what I want to talk about.” She simply skipped over any topics that might be related to Tezcatlipoca. “The situation in the main power room is not optimistic at the moment.”

"According to the intelligence analysis we have learned from your description, it should be the omnipresent energy of the warp itself that allows the demonic creation to quickly recover from the damage it has suffered at any time." Adjutant Fish said, "As long as we can leave the warp, this problem will surely be solved."

"The biggest problem is not the demonic creations, but the plasma reactor itself." Fujimaru Ritsuka reiterated, "We already know that when the Iron Father Ferros dealt with the emergency, he cut off all the pipes connected to the reactor itself in order to prevent the chaos contamination from spreading from the main power room to the outside. This is of course an impeccable way of dealing with the situation in an emergency, but - why didn't a leak occur?"

"…What do you mean?"

"Something 'ate' the energy that should have leaked out of the reactor." Fujimaru Ritsuka said with certainty, "A relatively simple guess is that the one who 'ate' that energy was the demonic creation that had been blocking the main power room door. The reason why it was able to recover quickly was not entirely because it could extract chaotic energy without restriction in the subspace. If it could use the energy generated by the reactor itself, it would have to be prepared for 'it not to be weakened after leaving the subspace.'"

"I will start my calculations with this assumption. But is it possible that the reactor did not leak, but its excess energy was directly absorbed by the warp?"

Fujimaru Ritsuka paused. She really couldn't tell whether this was a joke from Adjutant Fish. The flat synthesized voice made it almost impossible to tell the tone. After a brief hesitation, she decided to treat this as a serious question:

"Although this sounds like an optimistic idea, you know better than me that it is actually a worse possibility." She also said helplessly in a flat tone, "You don't want to find out that the Claw of Destruction was blown into two pieces due to a reactor leak in the main power source after leaving the warp."

"..."

"..."

The conversation subtly became dull, probably because neither side was quite sure whether they should laugh or not.

Surprisingly, the one who came to the rescue was Depp, who had disappeared from the room at some point and suddenly reappeared just now: "Fujimaru, your Servant is back."

Adjutant Fish wanted to say something to the person Debbie mentioned, but before he could react, Fujimaru Ritsuka in front of him immediately ran away with an expression of "being saved". He had no choice but to look in that direction: he needed to receive and coordinate the data previously obtained by the soldiers on the battlefield, and re-establish a wireless data transmission protocol with them that was more suitable for the current combat environment.

The one walking in front was a handsome young man with green hair, golden eyes, a calm expression, and a white robe with simple golden patterns. He was barefoot, giving the impression of a saint from some remote world. Considering that there might be all kinds of people among the Inquisitor's acolytes, Adjutant Fish was not too surprised by this, until he found that the tense atmosphere among the brothers of the Iron Hands Chapter not far behind this man clearly showed that their impression of this man did not match the first impression he had.

Fujimaru Ritsuka obviously saw this too. She moved closer to Enkidu, then glanced at the members of the regiment behind him with a somewhat strange look, and asked uncertainly: "Did anything happen on the way back?"

"Nothing." Enkidu answered naturally and smoothly, "The journey back was smooth, and I didn't encounter any enemies worth mentioning."

Fujimaru Ritsuka looked at Enkidu, who looked calm, and then looked at the remnants of the Iron Hand reconnaissance team who were facing a formidable enemy, and said confidently: "So something other than an enemy attack happened, right?"

"I don't think there's anything special about it." Enkidu said sincerely.

"Then why are you in this mood?"

"I don't know either." The God-made Weapon said confidently, "In the beginning, the think tank asked me 'what am I', and I thought about it. Considering that the concept of 'God-made weapon' is easy to cause misunderstanding in this universe where there are almost only evil gods, I found a similar concept from the transmitted knowledge to answer. Then it became like this."

"…Just in case I ask, what did you answer?"

"I said I could be roughly understood as an 'iron man'."

Enkidu obviously didn't think there was anything wrong with his description. Fujimaru Ritsuka had no choice but to raise his hands, bury his face in his hands in frustration, and sighed.

"——The misunderstanding caused by this description is obviously more serious than 'divine weapon'!!"

Today's 8K4! Call it a day! (Falling down with dry skin)

The difference in understanding between Moon and Hammer: The Grand Master will be understood as the Grand Mentor, so it is normal that the Servant will be understood as the attendant.

(End of this chapter)

Chapter 59 You really don't even have the initial value of persuasion

It took Malkan Feroth some time to regain full control of his body.

The pain left in his body was insignificant, even though he was considered to have more "physical" parts left in the Iron Hands Chapter. What really affected him was his memory and cognition: even though he was the Iron Father who had enhanced his brain's thinking speed and processing capacity, under such a mental shock, he had to spend some time to clarify the most basic questions:

Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?

After barely gathering the elements of self-recognition, the consciousness controlling this body can be called "Malkan Ferros". He unconsciously let out a mechanical sigh due to mental fatigue, and instinctively checked the time to know how long he had lost consciousness. Then he remembered that this was in the subspace, and the time indications on the power armor were all unreliable.

The time displayed on it was three seconds back from the moment he "fainted".

Then, he realized that the team's internal communications were about to explode with noise: the veterans were talking in a flurry, directing the awakened Primaris recruits to deal with the battlefield urgently. The basic deployment in the data link was busy and orderly, but he could tell from the wording that everyone's emotions were not very calm.

Contrary to the logic that the Iron Hands had always believed in, after the sneak attack by the Night Lords, the first to get up were the new recruits with a low degree of mechanization. Because the enemy (unexpectedly) did not aim to cause actual casualties, these new recruits only encountered some relatively mild means on the battlefield and temporarily lost consciousness for a short period of time. The veterans who had been strengthened too much could not be dealt with in a similar way. Instead of making them "lose consciousness", Conrad Curze obviously thought it was more convenient to make them "lose their ability to move".

He stood up. The minor injuries on his body were not enough to affect his actual functions, and the pain was completely bearable. Ferros looked around him and saw, not surprisingly, a large-scale mechanical maintenance site.

With the help of the Primaris brothers, some veterans have regained basic mobility - the price being that the mechanical parts that were originally precisely linked together have become distorted, and are "put together" with some rather unreliable methods. They creak and spark, and look like they may explode at any time, but they are still usable.