At the same time, on the bridge of the Steel Hammer, the atmosphere remained unbearably tense. The captain sat in his chair, his expression dark, and the crew below did not dare to speak. Although they had long known that anything requiring an Inquisitor's intervention would be highly unusual, they had never expected it to be this dangerous...…
"By the Emperor, please protect us...…"
The captain silently grasped the pendant on his chest and began to pray in a low voice, and just at that moment...…
"Beep—————!"
Suddenly, a shrill communication alert sounded, startling the captain. Before he could react, a hurried voice rang out.
"Reporting to the captain, a riot has broken out in the lower ship sections!"
"What? A riot?!"
Hearing this, the captain jolted and leapt to his feet.
"What's going on? Why would a riot break out?"
"I don't know, a few people suddenly seemed to go insane...… Damn it, restrain them! Tie them up...… Fuck...… grab them, damn it...…!!!"
However, the report only made it halfway through, as something else seemed to have happened. The speaker cursed as he went off to deal with it. The entire bridge fell into dead silence, with only the furious roars, curses, wails, and screams coming through the channel, chaotic beyond belief, leaving everyone unsure of what to do.
After a while, that voice finally appeared again.
"Reporting to the captain, these people have completely lost their minds. They actually committed suicide!"
"Suicide?"
Hearing this, everyone on the bridge was stunned.
"What exactly is going on? Why would this happen?"
"No idea. Ever since the entire ship compartment was sealed off, we've just stayed here obediently. We have no idea why this is happening..."
"Beep———!!"
Before the report could even finish, an urgent alarm blared again, followed by more voices.
"Report, a riot has broken out in the engine room!"
"Upper deck...…"
"Residential area...…"
"What in the hell is going on?"
Listening to the successive reports coming in, the captain's face grew darker and darker. Although the locations differed, the messages were all the same: people were suddenly going mad and attacking others. Even after being subdued, they struggled desperately or even harmed themselves. When questioned about what was going on, they said nothing, only that they wanted to kill people or...… kill themselves!
"Th-this, what on earth is happening here...…!"
At this moment, the captain's heart was pounding uncontrollably.
He felt that this time...… something truly terrible was about to happen!
At the same time, in the mining zone, Duanmu Huai was gripping his warhammer and charging straight ahead at full speed!
"Waaah—————!!"
As Duanmu Huai rushed past a corner, the ventilation fan beside him suddenly shattered. Immediately afterward, a mutant lunged out from it, letting out a beastlike roar and raising two claws tipped with sharp bone spurs as it pounced straight at him. At the same time, several other mutants in front of him also charged toward Duanmu Huai!
"Die!"
Facing these mutants, Duanmu Huai roared as he brought his warhammer down in a savage swing, smashing the mutant in front of him into pieces. Then he spun around and grabbed the claw of another mutant that was trying to pounce onto his back, thrusting it forward like a sword and piercing straight through the body of yet another mutant, nailing it viciously to the wall. Next, Duanmu Huai raised his warhammer and swung it again, hammering down on the two mutants like driving a nail. With a thunderous bang, the two mutants were smashed together into a bloody, mangled mass, fused into one and no longer distinguishable from each other.
"Ugh...… that's really disgusting...…"
Looking at the corpse before her, Anne's face turned pale. Although she had fought alongside Duanmu Huai many times and had seen plenty of monstrous horrors, this was the first time she had encountered something as hideous as these mutants.
"You get used to it after seeing enough."
Duanmu Huai naturally understood why Anne found these monsters so repulsive. Clearly, these mutants had all transformed from humans. Their appearances were basically the same: the palms of both hands had split open, with a pair of sharp, jagged bone spurs bursting out. Their abdomens were torn apart as well, with the large and small intestines tangled together inside, and on both sides of the abdominal cavity, two additional arms had even grown out!
On top of that, their mouths were split open like those of insects, with no lower jaw. At first glance, they were indeed terrifying.
Hmm...… Taking something like this and gifting it to the Skaven as a four-armed God-Emperor might actually be somewhat interesting.
But...…
Duanmu Huai reached out and grabbed one of the mutants, examining it carefully. Judging from its appearance, this one had been a miner, and it bore a fatal wound on its chest, which meant it had been killed earlier and only later mutated. That wasn't strange. What was strange was...… it wasn't alive!
It was dead!
In other words, these corpses themselves were dead, but something was controlling them, allowing them to move.
In essence, there was no difference between them and the puppets controlled by Olgis. Without the puppet strings, those puppets would also look as if they had come to life on their own.
So it seemed that the thing controlling them had to be the blasphemous relic.
Now Duanmu Huai finally understood why the system hadn't reacted when his puppets were attacked.
Because according to the system's judgment, these things weren't alive to begin with. It was like being hit by a chair or bumped by a table. The system couldn't exactly prompt, "The chair attacked you and dealt X damage," could it?
They had no self-awareness at all. How could that count as an attack?
Similarly, if factory workers were crushed by machinery or had their hands severed due to an accident, you couldn't say that the machine attacked the workers, right?
It was just operating according to its program. What did it do wrong?
So even if his puppets were torn to pieces by these mutants, the system wouldn't judge it as damage caused by an attack.
Of course, saying all this now was meaningless.
"It's just ahead."
Duanmu Huai glanced once more at the map on the corridor wall beside him. On the way here, he had already heard the captain explain that the mining zone didn't actually perform mining on site. First, augurs were used to scan and lock onto the location and size of mineral deposits. Then mining teams were dispatched to drill holes, after which all the ore was extracted, processed, and refined.
Thus, the mining teams would first drill into planetary fragments, then mine, transport, and refine the materials.
The elevator Duanmu Huai had taken down earlier was one such transport tunnel, which was why he could follow it here. According to the map on the wall, the area ahead was the core of the mineral deposit. If nothing was wrong, then the blasphemous relic should be inside.
"Get ready."
Duanmu Huai tightened his grip on the warhammer and stared ahead. He could feel a faint trace of divine power emanating from the front, a twisted, icy, and bizarre aura of godly energy. Although he didn't know which god had left it behind, he could be sure that this god had probably been anything but decent.
"Mm."
Anne and Olgis also became serious at this point. Along the way, they had discovered just how hard these mutants were to deal with. Unless they were completely destroyed, these things could crawl back up even after half their bodies were severed. Even striking vital points was useless. They had to be chopped into pieces...… which was terrifying!
"Alright, let's go!"
Duanmu Huai reached out and slammed the switch beside him. The blast door flew open, and Duanmu Huai gripped his warhammer and charged straight in, letting out a loud shout! Then...…
"...…Meow meow meow?"
Staring at the massive pit before him, Duanmu Huai found himself unable to speak like a normal human being.
Why was it empty?
"Master?"
"Huh? What's going on? There's nothing here??"
Olgis and Anne rushed in after him, staring at the empty mining pit with equally bewildered expressions. Duanmu Huai, however, felt his expression change slightly, his gaze sharpening.
"This is bad. We've been played!"
The reason Duanmu Huai said this was simple. Ever since he arrived on this ship, he had been able to sense that divine aura lingering outside, so he had subconsciously assumed that the blasphemous relic was on the fragment the Steel Hammer had excavated. He never expected it to be a classic lure-the-tiger-away-from-the-mountain trick!
Fuck, had this thing been sitting around for tens of thousands of years and actually grown a brain?
Thinking of this, Duanmu Huai hurriedly opened communications, trying to contact the bridge, but the signal was completely jammed. Fortunately, he had anticipated this long ago and immediately contacted Guleya instead———a Soulwalker being mentally linked to Soul Cards was hardly a secret.
"Guleya, what's happening on your end?"
"Sir Knight!!"
Hearing Duanmu Huai's voice, Guleya let out a long breath of relief.
"You finally responded. Things are going badly here! Those, those crew members suddenly started...…"
As she spoke, Guleya hurriedly explained the situation to Duanmu Huai.
In short, it had started with a wave of riots on the ship. Many of the isolated crew members inexplicably lost their minds and began attacking others. After being subdued, they either self-harmed or committed suicide. Many people died. The crew asked the captain how to handle it, and he said he would contact the Inquisitor, but he couldn't get through. At that time, Guleya wanted to notify Duanmu Huai, but what happened next far exceeded everyone's expectations.
Soon, reports came in from various sections that those who had died earlier had suddenly revived, turning into some kind of monsters that they simply couldn't defeat. And because the compartments were sealed off, they couldn't escape even if they wanted to! Many people begged the captain to immediately lift the quarantine, or they were as good as dead!
However, faced with this situation, the captain still insisted on maintaining the lockdown. Through internal footage, they also saw the monsters slaughtering crew members, which terrified them!
And naturally, these monsters also launched an assault on the bridge!
Fortunately, with Guleya and Rani present, the monsters hadn't broken through, but they still left Guleya deeply uneasy.
"Sir Knight, what exactly is going on...…"
"Heh, this thing actually grew clever!"
Hearing this, how could Duanmu Huai not realize he'd been tricked! Even if the opponent was a remnant god, and getting outplayed was somewhat understandable, that didn't mean Duanmu Huai wasn't pissed off!
Still, he knew what mattered most.
"Guleya, ask the captain how many raw material elevators there are, and where they're located!"
At this point, Duanmu Huai didn't even need to guess. The blasphemous relic had definitely already been transported away. Since he hadn't seen it along the route he took, that meant it had been moved from somewhere else! Everything that had happened earlier was nothing more than the blasphemous relic remotely manipulating events, deliberately making people think it was still below, while in reality its true body had already slipped aboard unnoticed!
"Ah, okay...… The captain says there are two raw material elevators!"
"Hold the bridge. I'm heading back now!"
Duanmu Huai issued the order swiftly, then raised his head and stared down the corridor ahead, a flash of killing intent passing through his eyes.
Good one. You actually dared to trick me?
Let's see if I don't smash your brains out!
(end of chapter)