Typhus stood on the bridge, which resembled a massive rotting corpse, resting one hand on his giant scythe as he nonchalantly watched the holographic projection of Imperial warships being engulfed by yellow-green clouds of plague.
"The False Emperor's lapdogs have a sharper nose than before."
His rasping voice echoed amid the buzzing swarm of flies. The plague had only just begun to spread through this sector, yet the Imperium had immediately assembled a fleet to investigate. In Typhus's past experience, the corrupt Imperial bureaucracy usually took years, if not decades, to navigate their procedures and realize something was wrong here.
"A pity. Quick to react, but far too weak."
Looking at the modest task force, a contemptuous curl touched Typhus's mouth beneath his helmet. This level of force was far too paltry to halt the Grandfather's blessings—it was meager even as an appetizer. Evidently, the enemy realized this as well, adopting a standard defensive formation and maintaining a cautious desperation, like prey pinned in a hunter's crosshairs.
The naval battle proceeded as tediously as Typhus had anticipated. That was until several Imperial light cruisers suddenly broke formation, their engines overloading as they spewed brilliant plasma trails, launching a mad countercharge directly toward the Death Guard fleet.
This unexpected move caught Typhus slightly off guard. "Have these lapdogs lost their minds out of fear? Or are they trying to pull off a meaningless suicide attack?"
Immediately after, tactical augurs revealed that, under the cover of the salient created by those few warships, the main fleet behind them was beginning an orderly turn, attempting to disengage from the battlefield and flee.
"Ah, severing the tail to save the body," the flicker of interest in Typhus's eyes vanished in an instant. He waved a hand listlessly, as if swatting away a bothersome fly. "Boring tricks. Death Guard, board them. Finish off those suicidal hulks as quickly as possible."
At his command, boarding torpedoes packed with Plague Marines launched toward the rearguard warships like bloated maggots.
Following the thunderous shriek of tearing metal, a grotesque moss of flesh and blood erupted from the breach, wildly proliferating across the Imperial steel corridors. A thick, impenetrable yellow-green toxic fog spewed through the ventilation shafts—a venom potent enough to instantly dissolve a mortal's lungs.
Several Death Guard clad in decayed power armor strode out of the torpedo bays. Their heavy footfalls squelched on the decking, which had already mutated to sprout eyeballs and teeth.
They expected to be greeted by the agonizing coughs of mortal crewmen, screams of despair, and lambs waiting for the slaughter, cowering in the dark. Fear and plague were, after all, the ultimate weapons to break all resistance.
Yet, something unexpected occurred that surprised these battle-hardened Plague Marines.
Deep within the thick fog, there were no screams, nor was there any rout.
Countless dense streams of las-fire, shells, and heavy bolter rounds poured out from the toxic haze like a torrential downpour, slamming hard against the Plague Marines' rotting armor. Even in such a suffocating, hopeless situation, they encountered an organized, full-scale counterattack.
After a brief moment of surprise, the superhuman reflexes of the Astarte took over the battlefield.
"Insects that do not know their place."
The leading Plague Marine let out a wet, cold snort, and the bolter in his hands roared to life. Large-caliber bolt shells exploded in the narrow corridor, each round tearing a mortal warrior into a cloud of flying flesh. What felt jarring to the Death Guard, however, was that even when comrades beside them were instantly turned into minced meat, the remaining soldiers did not falter in the slightest—not a single one even let out a terrified scream.
Filling the gap, raising rifles, opening fire.
The entire sequence of actions was as smooth as an Mechanicus assembly line—cold and efficient.
"Now! Suppressive fire!"
Accompanied by a raspy roar, a heavy bolter began to chatter frantically from the flank of a improvised position. A whip of retaliatory ammo belts lashed the air, pounding relentlessly against the broad chestplate of a Death Guard.
Against ordinary power armor, a close-range barrage of heavy firepower like this would have shattered the ceramite long ago. Yet this favored child of Nurgle merely staggered half a step back. The heavy bolter rounds tore through his swollen, rotting hide, but failed to inflict a fatal wound on the monster. Instead, it was like striking a mass of fermenting dough or a decaying swamp—black pus and dark green rotten flesh splattered everywhere, emitting a sickening stench.
"Weak and feeble," the Death Guard strode forward directly into the heavy bolter fire, casually throwing a grenade that turned the barricade and the gunner behind it into a puddle of bubbling green acid.
The very next second, however, another "Helldiver" soldier stepped over the dissolving remains of his comrade, taking over the still-hot heavy bolter without a moment's hesitation and pulling the trigger once more.
This near-lunatic resistance slowed their rate of advance to an agonizing crawl, far exceeding the Death Guard's expectations.
Every inch of air here was saturated with Nurgle's psychic plague. This toxic haze did not merely corrode physical flesh; it shattered mortal willpower on a psychic level, inducing profound despair and terror. Normally, mortals should have been on their knees begging for mercy by now, or dying in agony amid a chorus of coughs as their lungs rotted away.
But this group of "Helldivers" was different.
Through their heavy gas masks, the Death Guard could hear heavy, blood-flecked gasps—a telltale sign that lungs were dissolving. Yet these mortals seemed to completely block out physical pain. Their bodies, clad in black carapace armor, stood firm in the poison fog. Even if their lasguns left only negligible scorch marks on power armor, even if their bayonets snapped against rotting hides, they continued to hurl themselves forward in endless waves.
Before the envoys of Nurgle's Garden, this group of mortals displayed a resilient willpower capable of standing toe-to-toe with fallen angels.
This abnormal situation finally aroused the interest of Nurgle's sons. They no longer merely pulled triggers like clockwork; instead, they began to inspect these strange "toys" with the malicious eyes of a connoisseur.
An exceptionally tall Death Guard brought his steps to a halt. Rather than shooting, he allowed a Helldiver who rushed up to him to drive a bayonet right into his abdominal armor. With a crisp sound of snapping metal, the bayonet broke, and the Plague Marine merely let out a low, gurgling chuckle.
Reaching out a massive hand, he grabbed the Helldiver by the throat like a chicken. With his other hand, he drew a broad combat knife coated in rust and dried blood, swinging it horizontally in a motion that seemed slow yet was utterly unavoidable.
Squelch—
An ear-grating tearing sound echoed as the Helldiver player was cleanly severed at the waist.
The Death Guard did not let him fall. Instead, he lifted the still-twitching upper torso before his eyes using a single hand. Fresh red blood did not gush from the wound; at the moment of the severing, black rotten flesh oozing from the gaps in the Astartes' armor and a few giggling Nurglings used the opening as an entryway, merrily burrowing into the player's exposed abdominal cavity, squirming and multiplying between the still-beating organs like homing worms.
That slimy, heart-piercing sensation twisted the player's features entirely. His eyes widened, and he burst out cursing: "AAAAAAAAAH! What the fuck, are you fucking disgusting?! Get your filthy hands off me!"
This unexpected reaction caught the Death Guard off guard, his eyes gleaming with a strange light beneath the mask. He had seen countless souls screaming and begging for mercy in agony, but he had never witnessed a reaction where disgust so heavily outweighed fear.
"Why be in such a hurry to die? Life is so wonderful," the Death Guard spoke slowly, his voice sounding as though he had a mouthful of thick phlegm, carrying a faint trace of missionary compassion. "Look at these blessings. As long as you nod and accept the Grandfather's love, I can guarantee you will instantly possess a lifespan equal to the universe itself, with no more pain, only—"
The Helldiver's response to this was simple and brutal: "Fuck off!"
Before his words finished echoing, a deafening roar erupted from the end of the corridor.
"Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—!!"
It was a heavy stubber set up by teammates finally sweeping its fire over. A storm of large-caliber live rounds swept through this section of the hallway instantly, caring nothing for friendly forces in the line of fire.
In a flash, the player held suspended in midair was shredded into a blob of unidentifiable minced meat by the violent hail of bullets, putting a complete end to his "disgusting" experience. Naturally, the Death Guard holding him was the primary target.
However, when the smoke and blood-mist cleared, the Death Guard remained standing firm. Heavy stubber bullets struck his dense ceramite armor, kicking up countless sparks; some even lodged into his rotting muscle, yet failed to force him back a single step. He casually tossed aside the remaining half-section of spine in his grip, looked at the still-roaring gun barrel, and let out a sigh.