Chapter 358 An Explosion
Conrad Coates tossed a black glass cube in his hand boredly, causing the Hrud fur sealed inside the dark crystal to flip up and down. The Hrud people are in a special situation. If they don't borrow some extraordinary skills, their bodies will evaporate quickly and cannot be preserved.
Conrad has always regretted that he could not collect a few pieces of the soft furs of the Hrud to hang in his private collection and wardrobe.
Suddenly, he held the crystal tightly and slammed the cube onto the long steel table in the Iron-Blooded command room, making an attention-grabbing crunching sound.
“You have been sitting on this chair for nine days, Perturabo,” Conrad Curze said rudely. “This is not a good sign. I suggest you stand up and take a walk. , such as going for a thirteenth circle in your Cheorwon Garden.”
Perturabo glanced at him and ignored it. The numbers constantly scrolling on the dozens of data boards connected to his brain through neural lines showed that he was thinking at high speed.
"Conrad is right, the dust is settled," Sanguinius said softly, rarely supporting the Blood Lord's words head-on. His eyes stayed on Perturabo's furrowed eyebrows, " Nearly all battles have been decided, and we have won, my brother."
"There is also the fleet battle," Rogal Dorn reminded him, wearing his golden skull. Appears in the middle of the holographic projection. "Some Hrud are escaping under the influence of the poison gas. We need to intercept them in space."
"Come on, Rogal Dorn," Konrad hissed, the crystal on the table. There was a harsh breaking sound, "You haven't finished the few planets left for you yet, and you came to accompany Perturabo to the battle meeting."
"And you "Sanguinius, have you had good food recently?" He glanced at the archangel.
"The taste of the food is not satisfactory, and once again contains ingredients that are not conducive to the metabolism of Space Marines." Sanguinius said euphemistically, "It is not as good as the wine you gave us."
Roger· Dorn turned to Conrad and looked at him deeply: "First of all, I arrived at the Satrada Abyss area two hours ago; secondly, I have the right to participate in discussions about the war. Finally, Sanguinius The words were too arbitrary and needed appropriate supplementation."
Sanguinius flapped his wings, ignoring the seemingly stiff atmosphere. Compared with his brief foreboding, he even felt that the Lord of the Seventh Legion was much easier to talk to.
"Don't make any noise." Mortarion said dullly. He was the person furthest away from Conrad's seat.
Mortarion couldn't understand the subtle relationship between the people in the room, and when he heard Sanguinius's hint about food, his temples throbbed slightly and hurt. This made Mortarion miss Horus Luperkar.
Perturabo simply raised a hand to signal the Primarchs to be silent. Several people immediately understood what the Lord of Iron meant and sat upright.
"I admit that this long war has been hard for most of us - we Primarchs, our Astartes, and our Auxiliaries, most of this collection , have all reached the end of victory. Hrud has been retreating steadily, and his last lair has been dug and destroyed, and he is running away like a bereaved rat. The remaining work is also something that our battle-hardened warriors can do. "
"As for why I still left a planet without doing anything to it," Perturabo pondered for a moment and continued, "I don't want to pretend to hide it, because I left it. Barabas Dantioch, the commander of the 11th Battalion, and Zoran Anderson, a member of his reconnaissance team, are still missing here."
"What is their current situation?" Roger Dorn. ask.
"The rescue team did not go deep into Hrud's lair, nor did they meet the missing people. And the communication signal has never been restored." The Lord of Iron breathed steadily, his eyes as majestic as usual, just like A piece of steel that is never disturbed by external events.
"I think..." Sanguinius began thoughtfully, not sure whether he should say the next words himself. "It would be a huge pity if the battalion commander died here." Coze said softly, staring at the black crystal in his palm. "The history of change may not flow in the direction you and I expect."
Perturabo raised his head: "The last time I considered whether to destroy the place where there were still people whose lives and deaths were uncertain. The world is in Prospero. At that time, the alien that Magnus and I encountered was called the Devouring Bee. "Did you press the button?" Decades have passed since that day, enough time to build a new glorious country from the ruins.
"I don't," said Perturabo, overlapping his hands and placing them flat on the table. "Prospero's jurisdiction is not mine, and Magnus is the Primarch. , I have confidence in his ability after all.”
"But this time is different from last time, dear Perturabo," Curze looked up from staring at the crystal and said coldly.
“Do you really think that two Astartes can walk out of the lair of an entire planet where the Hrud is powerful alive? Even if he is the eleventh battalion commander you are optimistic about, it will not help. Why don't you first collect the blood containing the genetic memory of the two in your flagship..."
"That's enough," Perturabo said sharply, and stopped short before he finished speaking. live.
He shook his head slightly: "I understand what you mean, Conrad. The carrier aircraft and poison gas bombers are already on standby in the orbital ship. After all personnel have completed combat preparations, there will be no more delays..."
Suddenly, a burst of bright white light burst out from the holographic star map. A flicker so small in the universe, an undetectable sigh, a momentary burst of light, originating from the core of the planet that the Primarchs are paying attention to.
"Retreat!" Perturabo immediately issued an order to the fleet that was orbiting the planet and preparing to carry out the extermination mission, without wasting a second.
After a few seconds, the icon in the star map changed from a red dot to a cold gray background with crossed black lines.
Under Perturabo's thoughts, the star map quickly focused on the real scene image, but they still could not catch up with the rolling lava and the gray clouds in the sky, the titanium alloy shell and the tempered polymer inner layer of collapse, and the cracked core of the planet. Hrud's spaceships kept flying rapidly from the surface of the planet, and were ruthlessly captured by the planet, swallowed into the depths of destruction, and no one could escape.
The broken time keeps cutting things, and then spits them out temporarily in a chaotic way. Sometimes it is a desolate stone plain, sometimes it is a war-torn fortress, sometimes it is a cold steel circle, every scene is fleeting. , after a brief appearance, it was drawn back into the abyss of time sequence.
Soon, the planet flickered one last time, then curled inward. After the temperature indicator burned for a moment at several thousand degrees, it suddenly dropped back to a low of minus two hundred degrees, with only the surrounding radiation supporting the heat. Silence spreads along with the cold.
Everything rewinds and shrinks like a tide in the broken lava and thick smoke, and then in the turbulent flow of time, it collapses to a point of darkness that almost no longer exists, with dust scattered in the space, and ghosts in recollection.
Perturabo stood up from his seat, stared at the broken planet, took a deep breath, paused for a few seconds, and then exhaled slowly.
He opened the sound array sequence and gave orders to the war blacksmiths.
"Prepare for the victory celebration. In addition, compile the list of the dead and prepare for the funeral."
(End of this chapter)