Thanks to the high work ethic of the sailors on the expedition fleet, the cabin had not yet fallen into chaos. Through the porthole, Bernadette could see the subspace rift in space with strange waves surging, and the subspace tendrils tightly wrapped around the hull, trying to drag the Jealous Lady into the abyss.

The light in the sea of ​​souls changes rapidly, and all colors in the spectrum can be found there, from the red of war that represents blood and killing, to the green of despair that is filled with the breath of decayed life… and the gold that burns like a flame and shines like a dream.

Bernadette stopped where she was. She stood in front of the porthole and looked into the distance at the bottomless abyss.

However, in her eyes at this moment, the final rift that symbolized chaos and despair was not despair. Through the destructive power surging in the sea of ​​souls, she saw a huge and dark sun burning with golden light.

The next moment, the Jealous Lady was swallowed by the rift.

There is no concept of time in the Supreme Heaven. The captain of the Jealous Lady has forgotten whether he activated the Geller force field before or after the ship fell into the warp. In short, it was turned on, but it soon became ineffective.

The sailors on the ship were horrified to find that the Geller field that maintained the reality bubble around Ms. Jealousy had automatically extinguished as soon as it was activated for some reason, and the entire ship was exposed to the turbulent current without any protection.

But then they were shocked to realize that even if the Geller force field failed, there were no intrusive subspace creatures in the cabin of the Jealous Lady, which was surprisingly clean.

In the ship’s command room, the psychic from the Reipt family took off the cloth of the Holy Word that covered his eyes and tried to find some reference points in the sea of ​​souls to determine where he was.

But as soon as the navigator’s eyes, which had no normal vision, opened, he uttered a miserable groan and fell to the ground in pain.

“What’s wrong with you?” the monk of truth beside him asked with concern.

——But the monk did not help the fallen navigator. Instead, he frowned and silently retreated behind the Eldar banshee holding the argument spear.

He knew very well that if a navigator saw something he shouldn’t see in the subspace, there was a high probability that he would mutate into a Chaos evil creature. Fortunately, this navigator was lucky, and under the watchful eyes of several banshees and Astra Militarum soldiers, his body did not mutate.

The navigator’s eyes were filled with bright red blood, and two lines of bloody tears flowed from the corners of his eyes, but his expression did not show any pain. Instead, it showed a kind of strange fanaticism and…happiness?

“I saw a dark sun burning with golden flames.” The navigator trembled and said, “I saw our God-Emperor, using His broad hands to push aside the ocean currents for us and guide the direction of the expedition… I saw the sorrow of compassion in His eyes, and His voice was as melodious as the moans of countless civilians under the hive city…”

“He said, the end is just ahead, the beginning is just ahead.”

After he finished speaking, the navigator, with tears of blood flowing, covered his face and cried.

In the cabin, Bernatita, who was standing in front of the porthole, also woke up from her trance. Looking again, the dark sun hanging high in the sky had disappeared, and the turbulent subspace currents around it also receded.

The distorted colors gradually faded, and when I looked up, I could see the sickly blue-purple starry sky in the vortex.

“We have come out of the subspace?” Bernadette looked around in disbelief. The strange feeling that the end was approaching had faded away, and only the stars in the sky were still flashing strange light.

I walked quickly through the corridor and entered the battleship’s command room. The wide holographic projector already displayed the surrounding scene:

The Jealous Lady floated in a very quiet, almost dead-silent sky, drifting slowly forward.

In front of the battleship is a beautiful planet full of brilliance, crystal clear like a huge crystal diamond, refracting the starlight from all directions into a colorful and brilliant glow.

“He said the end is just ahead.”

The navigator wiped the blood and tears from his face and shouted to everyone in the command room in an extremely fanatical and crazy tone: “Our starting point is just ahead…”

Bernadette and the captain looked at each other, nodded, walked slowly forward, and stared at the beautiful crystal planet in front of them.

Chapter 199 Ebony Claw

Perhaps because of the special nature of the Maelstrom Sector itself overlapping with the Warp, psykers here are more susceptible to the influence of the Empyrean than in any other area of ​​the physical universe.

After looking directly at the dark sun hanging high above the Sea of ​​Souls, the Emperor’s oracle the Navigator received was exceptionally clear and not at all mysterious.

This was an unprecedented event. As far as Russell knew, direct interference of the gods of the Warp, including the Emperor of Mankind, in reality would only occur frequently after the 42nd millennium after the opening of the Great Rift and the beginning of the “Age of the Indomitable”.

It is about 1000 years away from now.

The navigator Diamond Reipt now clearly understood the secrets of the planet and realized his mission.

“Fabius Bile, on this planet.”

Diamond turned around, opened his arms and gave a full Eagle Salute to the crystal planet in front of him. A deep voice came from his body, as if hundreds of exhausted souls were overlapping in this body:

“I have been called by the Emperor of God. You should join me in spreading the light of the Golden Throne to the planet ‘Karen’ and complete the mission entrusted by the Lord of Humanity.”

Following the will of the God-Emperor, everyone in the command room, except for the Brother of Truth standing behind the Eldar Banshee, knelt on one knee at this moment and swore allegiance to Diamond, who had become a ‘saint’.

The panic of being separated from the main force was soon diluted by the advent of the saint, and the crew members of the Jealous Lady quickly cheered up and regrouped, constantly trying to locate the position of the ship and try to reconnect with the Malevolent Woman.

Knowing that Fabius Bile was here, all the shipboard detectors of the Jealous Lady were activated, and some small carrier-based aircraft that were easy to hide were also secretly dispatched to conduct targeted environmental surveys of the crystal planet in front of them.

Following the guidance of Saint Diamond, they quickly obtained the basic information of the crystal planet named “Karen”.

“Karen is a demon planet ruled by an evil god. Its core is an ancient relic filled with chaotic power. A large number of mutants gather around the relic mountain range and constantly fight each other, competing for the opportunity to enter and the deepest part and seize the ‘treasure’ there.”

“There are a large number of mutants on the planet Karen, who are derived from human mutations. Their messy language still retains some traces of Gothic. By capturing and interrogating the mutants, we learned that earlier, a barge crashed near the Ruins Valley, and then a strange man with complicated mechanical arms fell from the sky, killed a large number of mutants, and then entered the valley.”

They had good reason to conclude that this strange man was the crazy biologist Fabius Byer who escaped from Gormek with the Organic Codex.

The Jealous Lady was parked in orbit above the planet Karen, continuing to try to locate itself in the heavy warp interference and make contact with the Valkyrie flagship.

Although the monks sent by the Truth Order repeatedly reminded them that they should wait until the main force of the expeditionary fleet arrived before taking action, the crew members, who were already caught up in the fervor of holy war, ignored him. Even though they could not mobilize the rare and elite Eldar Banshee squad, a large number of mortal soldiers had already begun to be sent to the ground via heavy transport aircraft.

Due to the “heavy artillery battleship” positioning of the Envious Lady itself, this main battleship does not carry too many land forces. There is only one Cyberrex battleframe parked in the hangar, but there are quite a few Imperial Guard’s standard Poison Blade tanks and Chimera armored personnel carriers, all of which were deployed into the ruins mountain range filled with mutant corpses.

A large number of modular automatic bunkers and “Aegis” simple defense templates were airdropped onto the dreamy and beautiful crystal surface of Karen Star, and in a very short time they were assembled into an imperial defense line deployed with plasma erasers and revenge cannons. The sacred skull symbol of mankind appeared at strategic locations such as the commanding heights of the ruins mountains, completely blocking the ruins valley.

Mortals full of fighting spirit hold pulse rifles and plasma pistols tightly in their hands behind the defense line. This group of fanatics driven by religious fervor will use their lives to defend the newly built Imperial defense line in the coming time, prevent the continuous influx of mutants from entering the ruins and interfering with the God-Emperor’s saint in fulfilling his great mission.

The battle broke out before the defense line was fully built.

Amid the sounds of frequent explosions and pulse rifle fire, Saint Diamond, Inquisitor Bernadette, several Ecclesiarch priests, Engine Prophets of the Mechanicus, Brothers of Truth, and others, under the protection of a veteran squad composed of elite veterans of the Imperial Guard, descended to the bottom of the Valley of Ruins.

The entrance to the ruins was very hidden. The Karen planet, which was made entirely of transparent crystal, was a huge mirrored maze. The auspicious instrument was disrupted by the power of chaos and became ineffective. People walking in the depths of the valley could hardly distinguish where the mountain was and where the illusion was refracted by the crystal. They couldn’t even confirm whether the ground they were standing on was solid. Every step they took was filled with fear.

But Diamond seemed to be completely unaffected by the crystal maze. He walked quickly and took every step firmly, as if there was a target with a highlighted red name in front of him, guiding him to speed up his pace and pass through sharp cracks that were either wide or narrow.

This situation made the accompanying soldiers more convinced that he was the one who carried the Emperor’s will, and their faith became more fanatical. This fanatical faith in turn alleviated the increasingly severe Chaos erosion caused by their continuous deepening into the ruins, forming a somewhat heretical cycle.

But soon, everyone’s progress was halted by a loud noise.

The guardsmen held their weapons tightly and looked up at the sound. A large amount of crystal debris was falling from above their heads. They were in a natural crack deep in the crystal mountain. The loud noise just now was nothing else but the crack suddenly split further and became bigger.

“The mountain is further collapsing. Is it caused by ground fighting?” The Engine Prophet in the team said subconsciously.

After all, among the troops deployed to the ground battlefield, there is a Cybertron battle machine with specifications equivalent to that of a Warlord-class Titan. It is not surprising that the powerful firepower bombardment of the Titan machine will affect the shallow geological structure of the planet.

Everyone accepted this explanation at first, and the group continued to move deeper into the ruins while eliminating the mutant monsters lurking in the corners of the ruins. However, as they went deeper, the noise from the mountain not only did not weaken, but became even more intense.

This time, the Engine Prophet could not give a reasonable explanation. The depth they were now at had exceeded the influence of Titan’s firepower. Unless the Jealous Lady, which was parked in orbit, directly launched an orbital bombardment on Karen, it would be impossible to cause geological fluctuations at such a depth.

But that is even more impossible to happen. The ships of the Human Empire will never bomb the planet where the saint is. Even the planet where the saint is blessed will be revered as a shrine world. Countless noble officials will scramble to have themselves and their family members buried there after their death.

At this time, Diamond, who had been walking without stopping, finally stopped and said, “Byer has taken away the treasure deep in the ruins. That is the foundation of the existence of this planet. Karen is about to collapse. We must evacuate as soon as possible.”

With a loud bang, the mountain shook violently.

The saint advised his followers, but no one chose to retreat. They were all prepared to fight and die for the Emperor.

At this time, four hours had passed since they entered the ruins. Only two veteran guards were forced to return to the surface to notify the ground troops fighting with the mutant settlement to evacuate. All the rest followed the saint and continued to move forward.

As they got closer, through the crystal mountain walls that were as clear as ice, everyone could already feel a strange sense of heat. This feeling was not simply temperature, but something much deeper.

Because no matter whether it was the mortal soldiers wearing standard power armor, or the priests of the state religion in robes; from Bernadette holding the Bloodthirsty Demon Sword, to the Engine Prophet with little flesh on his body; everyone felt that kind of cold heat very clearly.

Their bodies were sweating from the heat, but their souls were shivering from the cold.

“he came.”

“He’s in there.”

After passing through a winding path and squeezing through crystal cracks as sharp as a knife, the darkness suddenly becomes clear and a wide cave hall appears before your eyes.

No one in the team carried a light source. The standard power armor worn by the mortal soldiers was equipped with an airtight helmet that integrated multiple sensing methods such as infrared scanners and thermal vision. Even in complete darkness, it would not prevent them from seeing the scene in front of them clearly.

It was a hellish scene.

In the wide cave hall deep in the mountain, there are countless dry and crispy skeletons scattered around. When you step on them, they make a crackling sound like a layer of potato chips. Some are human, some are alien, but most of them are mutants that have been mutated into strange shapes due to chaos pollution.

There are countless skeletons piled up on the periphery. In the center of the cave hall is a triangular altar made of dark rocks. In the center sits a huge eye symbol made up of 8 simple lines.

The closer you get to the center of the altar, the stronger the cold and strange feeling of heat becomes. In the darkness, there is a subtle crackling sound similar to burning wood, but not many people can associate it with this – most of the soldiers of the Imperial Guard come from the middle and lower classes of the hive, and may never see a living plant in their entire lives.

Diamond looked up, gazing at the inconspicuous figure hidden in the corner of the altar by camouflage. The highlighted red name was so eye-catching to him: “Bail…”

“Shoot!” Bernatita shouted and put the Bloodthirsty Demon Sword back into her waist, and pulled out the grenade launcher and plasma pistol on both sides of her thighs with her hands.

Most of the soldiers had not found the target at this time, but that did not prevent them from using the pulse rifles in their hands to fire a volley in the general direction of the commander’s gun. The dense pulse beams tore through the deep dark fantasy entrenched above the triangular altar, and also reflected a pale ashes on the ground.

Bernadette’s pupils shrank slightly, as if a massacre or an evil sacrifice had just taken place here not long ago. She seemed to guess where the cold and hot feeling just now came from.

Then, a scream confirmed her thoughts.

Several soldiers on the periphery suddenly ignited with flames that were darker than the darkness without light, penetrating the power armor and burning their flesh and souls. Amid the painful struggles and screams of the elite veterans of the Imperial Guard, a black shadow resembling a humanoid spider flashed by.

Obviously, the previous shot failed to hurt Bayer, who was an extremely powerful Astartes.

But I’ve never heard of an Astartes being able to set people on fire out of thin air… Bernatita held her gun in both hands and looked around vigilantly. The flames burning on the soldiers on fire were not ordinary flames, and they could not be extinguished at all. The comrades beside them could only watch them turn into a pool of white ash in pain.

Considering what the saint had just said, Fabius Bile had already seized the treasure in the ruins here and taken away the foundation of the existence of this planet. The dark flame that could burn a person into ashes out of thin air might be the power of that “treasure”.

In just the short moment she was thinking, several more soldiers were set on fire by the black flames and fell down screaming.

The mountain above kept groaning, breaking and deforming, and large amounts of crystal fragments were scattered down, indicating that the planet was collapsing.

“We must get rid of Bayer as soon as possible and take back all the codes from him.” Bernatita muttered to herself, inserting the explosive pistol back into the side of her thigh, freeing her hand to draw out the Bloodthirsty Demon Sword.

She took a deep breath, and the book of pleasure hanging around her waist opened by itself.

The pleasure spell from Slaanesh can greatly increase the sensitivity of nerves and the excitement of muscles, making her senses more acute and her movements faster for a short period of time – so fast that she can almost catch up with the Eldar.

But the side effect is that for a long time in the future, her power armor’s built-in secretion collection and cleaning system will always be working at full capacity.

When Fabius Bile’s figure once again emerged from the darkness, two figures holding spears quickly rushed out. The Astartes were far superior to mortals in terms of reaction speed and action ability, but they were still far inferior to the Eldar who claimed to be perfect creatures.

Even with the home advantage and the blessing of the Chaos Relics, Bayer still couldn’t escape the pursuit of the two banshees. The psychic circuits built into the lobbyist mecha amplified their proud agility. The catapulting of their legs and the stabbing of the spirit bone spears happened almost in a millimeter.

With a sharp buzzing sound, the sharp spear tip wrapped with a psychic decomposition field penetrated deeply into the black stone altar at a speed faster than a nail shot from a nail gun, piercing a mechanical arm that was struggling and dancing wildly like a living snake. The surgical circular saw at the end of the mechanical arm made a rustling sound.

Bayer, who had lost a mechanical arm, rolled into the ranks of mortal soldiers. Although he was in a mess, he had observed that none of the soldiers had taken out close-combat weapons, and firing pulse rifles at close range would inevitably hurt friendly forces, so he was afraid to use his weapons…

The bright beams of light tore apart Fabius Bile’s fantasy and the surrounding darkness. The fanatical soldiers did not care that their guns would accidentally injure their teammates, nor did they care that their comrades’ rifles would shoot through them. They shouted slogans and pulled the trigger.

“For the Emperor!”

“For the Emperor!”

At this moment, hundreds of pulse rays were fired, but less than 10 of them successfully hit Fabius Bile’s body. Most of the others were cleverly avoided, efficiently reaping the lives of the Emperor’s loyal servants.

Taking advantage of the brief interval between the two rounds of shooting, Bernatita seized the opportunity and rushed to the seriously injured Fabius Bayer before the two banshees. She used her full body weight to sit on Bayer’s chest, her legs firmly stepped on the mechanical arm behind him, the blood-red blade was placed on the opponent’s neck, and the dark and thick barrel of the explosive pistol was directly stuffed into his mouth.

“Hand over the complete code, and I will grant you a merciful death.”