Chapter 157 Death Falls from the Sky
He fell in a dream -
But the Adepts Astartes rarely dreamed.
Thinking back to the strange memory, he saw himself standing on an arid plain under a dark cloudy sky.
In the distance, he could see a jagged barren mountain, the top of which had been hollowed out to form a vast basin.
Sunlight penetrated the clouds overhead, illuminating the rain of iron and blood.
Countless corpses fell from the sky into the mountains.
People kept falling from the sky like raindrops, hitting the top of the mountain and filling the valley with flesh and blood.
They have only one thing in common, they are both Astartes.
Black, purple, gray, white——
And, somehow, he knew he was among them.
Soon, the air of the planet named Istavan San turned into flames. He could not see the horizon. He could only see a storm of fire rolling up and surrounding the atmosphere.
The integrity and heat alarms from his armor had stopped minutes ago, he could feel the coldness spreading over his flesh, he was breathing in the smoke but couldn't smell them.
Despite being enveloped in flames, he felt as if he was shaking.
He knew what that meant. The air—in his lungs, in his nose, in his throat—was burning him from the inside.
The fire was seeping in and he was being cooked within his armor.
He is dying.
He failed, that much was clear.
Besieged, betrayed and outnumbered, they still managed to bite back.
He should have anticipated how they would respond, he should have planned differently, he should have-
He was supposed to die from the first salvo of virus bombs.
This is the reward for his weakness, but if he dies, it will be the result of him once again proving his weakness.
Suddenly, Soshyan's voice brought him back to reality.
“One more minute, brothers, in the fire of war, we are determined.”
“We are determined.”
Thor's mouth automatically echoed the voices of the battle brothers around him - even though his brothers had long since perished and twisted into monsters.
“We fell from the sky, straight to hell.”
“Fight to the death.”
The soldiers chanted.
“One breath is still there.”
"The warband lives on forever!"
Thor turned his headband and looked at Soshyan.
He stood alone, with his head bent forward. His face was somewhat unclear under the projection of the red landing light, but his determined eyes were shining.
Soshiyang's armored hands tightly grasped the Holy Flame Sword, a powerful and exquisitely crafted power weapon.
Like his brothers, the war gave him determination.
At this time, there was a rumbling collision sound, and Thor realized that the Thunderhawk's back turret had fired.
After a while, a familiar sound vibrated indicating that Thunderhawk's automatic turret also fired.
Then the sound of cracking metal revealed that not all the shots were theirs.
He glanced at his team, their faces behind their helmets, before turning his attention to his own equipment.
The fully blessed and anointed bolter is locked at his side, the armor's automatic senses on standby, ready to connect to the weapon when he grabs it, monitoring the icon of his health meter The display is stable.
He rubbed against the restraints, satisfied with the firmness of the connection.
"We will eliminate the green-skinned leader as soon as possible."
Soshiyang raised his head and said, Thor looked into his cold black eyes and nodded in response.
There is no time to say anything more.
The engine's pitch began to rise, and the turbulence indicated that it was heading towards the landing site at full speed.
The protective straps on their backs trembled automatically as the warriors stood together, bolters unlocked and magnetic shoes locked for the final moment. Thor said a final prayer to his ancient sword as the armor's automatic feel bound to its targeting system and ammo counter.
They are still falling.
The noise outside can be heard from the reducer, no doubt the sound of the hammers of forging war,
The greenskins' war accompanies the thunderous roar, the enemy outnumbers them by hundreds. thousand.
They attack directly at the heart of the invaders, directly and truly realizing the emperor's just judgment.
"Brother."
The word sent a buzz of pain through his body, and the echoes of Istvan's dream faded from his mind.
The next second, the landing ramp opened.
Thor gripped the bolter tightly, his lips reciting the oath of battle.
In front of him, there was a row of green boys rushing toward Thunderhawk under a hazy dust cloud.
Even sealed in power armor, the anger stemming from the threat of attack still covered him and impacted his nerves.
When the stunned Greenskins try to preemptively attack, the only thing the Thunderhawk can do to the enemy is to continuously hit the enemy with heavy bolters and laser cannons, delivering death to the Greenskins at point-blank range.
After the Thunder Eagle lowered its altitude and smashed more than a hundred enemies, they began to flee in fear.
Soshyan was the first to jump out of the cabin and the first to open fire.
The nearest greenskins fell and burst into pieces under the hail of bolts, even their obnoxiously tough greenskin bodies unable to withstand the sacred fire of the blessed weapons in the hands of the Astartes.
The warriors were spread out on either side of the Chapter Master, spread out around the Thunderhawk to protect the landing zone.
The Thunderhawks above them supported them with thunderous firepower.
The battle brothers' unquenchable rage forced the roaring greenskins to retreat.
“Push forward.”
Soshyan's voice rang in the team channel.
The leader of the vanguard Ork group is nearby, easily identifiable by the size of the Ork - looming over the heads of its minions just a hundred meters before the landing point.
As Soshyan reloads, the Ork leader roars and leads the charge against the Space Marines.
As we all know, there are two things that green skins cannot bear: one is a challenge to authority, and the other is fierce battle.
The Astral Knights will also satisfy the beasts.
"Maintain the front."
Soshiyang's voice rang across the channel.
The next second, the gap between him and the Ork leader was filled with bullets again.
The greenskins took the blow and fought back, rudimentary bullets slamming into the Astartes armor, and the air was filled with dry dust and flying, hissing metal.
The health index panels of the three soldiers in the squad showed that they had suffered minor injuries.
Completely surrounded and exposed, they could not hold their small front for more than ten minutes.
They must move at the right time.
The Thunderhawk's engines roared into the sky, its protruding turret weapons spinning towards the Orks heading for the first squadron.
Not far away, the Ork leader and his bodyguards responded to the boy in front with punches and kicks, and cursed their subordinates with their roars.
The Ork leader himself was a giant beast with dark green muscles and a layered heavy yellow deck. His small, round eyes were filled with anger and he stared at Soshiyang. ——Obviously it also recognized Xiami’s leader.
It pushed and trampled those of its kind in front of him, rushed all the way in front of him, roared in challenge, and extended a huge mechanical claw towards Soshyan's head.
“Back off first.”
Soshiyan dodged the blow and exited his previous position.
He kept shooting, punching holes in the green-skinned bodyguards following the leader, switching from one target to the next with skill and ease.
The remaining warriors maintained the battle line, pouring ammunition into the growing horde like an unquenchable green tide.
Only Soshyan retreated.
Only the Ork leader followed into the team's encirclement.
(End of this chapter)