Over the following weeks, the situation slipped into an extremely bizarre direction.
That inexplicable "failure" was not an isolated incident; rather, it spread rapidly through the Death Guard's controlled territory like an undiagnosable plague—a plague targeting the plague itself.
One day, a summoning circle deep within the swamp suddenly lost its psychic resonance; the next, a newly established corpse-pit mysteriously failed to convert walk-dead.
Relying on the endless hordes of Nurgle as meat shields, the Death Guard had originally been able to steamroll their opponents with absolute impunity. But now, with the number of cannon-fodder infantry plummeting sharply, the advance was forced to slow down across the board.
To preserve precious Astartes forces, Typhus was forced to halt advances on several critical fronts, leaving him feeling unprecedentedly irritated.
In the command room, the atmosphere was as oppressive as congealed pus.
"Grand Master, this... this might be the will of the planet itself resisting," a chief plague wizard reported tremblingly, acidic, foul-smelling mucus constantly dripping from beneath his robes. "Or perhaps the warp barrier has suddenly thickened, making the Grandfather's gifts difficult to seep into the material universe..."
"Enough!"
Typhus abruptly turned around, his rusted Terminator armor emitting a harsh scraping sound, his turbid eyes burning with fury.
"Stop pinning all your incompetence on some ethereal planetary will! I've had enough of you doing this! Every time something stops working, you blame this damn planet!"
He strode up to the wizard, his huge shadow completely enveloping him: "If what you say is true, if the warp barrier really has thickened, why do I, as the host of the Destroyer Hive, feel absolutely nothing? Could it be that the thickening of the warp barrier or the interference of the planetary will happens like turning off lights—making nodes fail one by one in an extremely regular fashion?"
The wizard trembled under Typhus's imposing aura, daring not to speak.
Typhus let out a cold snort and turned toward the massive holographic sand table. He stretched out his fingers and tapped rapidly upon it, marking all the failed sorcery nodes from the past month.
"Open your dog eyes and look closely!"
As Typhus's finger swept across, a clear red line appeared on the holographic map, connecting those seemingly unrelated failure points together in chronological order.
That wasn't a random malfunction; it was a line. A winding, yet purposeful line piercing straight into the hinterland of the Death Guard, systematically cutting off their psychic supply lines!
"Do you understand now?" Typhus's voice was bone-chillingly cold. "This is no natural phenomenon at all! Obviously, the Helldivers sent people over to sabotage us! This is a meticulously planned infiltration operation! Yet waste products like you didn't realize it at all, and even wanted to hoodwink me with mystical excuses!"
Looking at that shocking red line, the wizard was dumbfounded, stammering in defense: "B-But, Grand Master, we assigned heavy guards to every single node! There are Nurgle beasts, Plague Marines, and even demon engines! Our patrols didn't find any abnormalities the entire time, and... and nobody was even casualties? If it were an enemy attack, how could there not even be the sound of a gunshot?"
This was precisely what made Typhus the most angry, and also the most vigilant.
"Why else would I say you're trash!"
Accompanied by an enraged roar, the great scythe swept a desolate arc through the air.
Splat!
The wizard who was still defending himself didn't even have time to scream before he was neatly cleaved in half, rotting viscera and black blood splashing all over the floor.
"Someone sneaked in without anyone knowing, sabotaged the nodes, and then managed to retreat scot-free without even a ghost of them being discovered by you..." Typhus withdrew his blood-stained scythe, not even glancing at the corpse on the ground. "This means the enemy is far more clever than you. What use is keeping blind fools like this around?"
The other attendants in the command room fell silent, not even daring to draw a heavy breath.
Typhus cast his gaze back onto the holographic map, that red line continuously extending in his mind.
Since it had regularity, it was predictable.
"If I were this rat, having sabotaged here, and then sabotaged here..." Typhus's finger slowly moved along the trajectory of the red line, searching the map for areas that had not yet been destroyed.
His sight finally locked onto three locations.
"These three nodes are the most likely upcoming targets along this route," Typhus mused for a moment, a plan already forming in his mind.
He raised his head and gave orders to the remaining officers: "Listen up, at points A and B, triple the forces for me, and plant a large number of poison gas traps and alarm runes. No guards in the open; hide all of them in the shadows!"
"Understood, my lord! What about point C?" a subordinate asked cautiously.
Typhus looked at the massive sewage hub located underground in an abandoned industrial area—that was currently the largest psychic convergence point in this region, and also point C.
"Point C... it doesn't need extra guards."
"I will go there and wait myself."
Typhus gripped the scythe in his hand tighter, a hunting gleam flashing in his eyes.
"I want to see just which rat can play such tricks right under my nose. Whoever it is, as long as they dare come, don't even think about walking out again!"
---
Deep within the thick, un-dissolvable yellow-green toxic fog, a thirteen-man Astartes squad clad in gray power armor lurked like ghosts inside an abandoned underground bunker.
This was Perditias own Astartes force—the Liberators Chapter. The gray paint on their armor possessed an almost built-in stealth effect in the dim environment, and the etched texts symbolizing sacrifice and vengeance on their power armor flickered faintly in the dim light.
The only person in the squad who wasn't a player, Chapter Master Caleb Hobbs Rotzpe, was currently leaning against the moss-covered wall. Awakened by his biological clock, he ended four hours of high-efficiency deep sleep. Those eyes, weathered by countless battles, snapped open, holding not a shred of post-sleep confusion, only chilling sobriety.
He glanced around at the warriors guarding or maintaining their weapons, his gaze finally resting on a figure sitting cross-legged in the corner.
"Brother Andrew," Caleb's voice came low and clear through the helmet communications channel, "it's your turn again."
"Understood, Chapter Master," the player codenamed immediately replied, a hint of eagerness in his tone.
Andrew deftly pulled out some items from his waist storage pouch that looked entirely unsuited to the Astartes aesthetic:
A few antique copper coins and a tray that looked like it had been polished from a tortoise shell fragment. He placed the coins into his hands, pressed his palms together, muttered incantations, and then scattered the coins onto the tray. He repeated this, looking as focused as if he were performing some sacred ritual.
Caleb silently watched this scene. Although his faceplate blocked his expression, the slightly tilted angle of his helmet exposed his complex feelings.
At the very beginning, Caleb was extremely resistant, even hostile, to this method. In his view, such bizarre behavior—shaking a few coins around while chanting words like:
"Doo bop
Shoebody doo bop
Shoebody doo bop
Shoebody doo bop[1]"
—was full of uncertainty and an even more dangerous aura.
Those obscure, difficult-to-understand vocabulary terms and unprecedented methods looked every bit like some unrecorded forbidden knowledge, and possibly even praying to the Warp for power.
"If you're going to divine at least use the Emperor's Tarot, bro!" Caleb had once said this to Andrew. He could never forget that the reason the Liberators Chapter had fallen to the brink of extinction with fewer than a hundred members remaining was because they suffered heavy blows from Warp demons.
He maintained a hundred-and-twentieth level of vigilance against anything that might be tainted by Warp corruption.
Yet every time he faced doubt, Andrew always gave a glib explanation: "Maan, don't be nervous. This is Perditia's signature culture and local divination method; it is definitely not psychic power! Much like the White Scars' Stormseers or the Space Wolves' Rune Priests, it's just hometown custom and scientific probability!"
Caleb didn't believe a word of this ghost story at first, remaining firmly opposed. It wasn't until that Living Saint favored by the Emperor personally came forward to vouch for this quirky divination that Caleb's hardline attitude finally softened somewhat.
And the series of facts that followed forced him to shut up. In dozens of previous secret infiltration operations, relying on Andrew's mystical guidance, they truly felt like they had turned on a map hack, dodging all patrols, precisely locating every fragile sorcery node, and then completing the destruction and retreating as if strolling through an empty courtyard.
After experiencing "true fragrance" countless times, Caleb finally admitted silently in his heart: "Yes, this is Perditia's characteristic divination culture, not psychic power. Even if the Emperor Himself asks me, I'll say the same."
Clatter—
The copper coins fell onto the tray for the last time, emitting a crisp sound. Andrew stared at the hexagram on top for a few seconds, his previously relaxed expression instantly freezing.
He took a deep breath and recited the hexagram: "MRUK TAH MAGHH..."
The other Liberators around him were also Helldivers, but clearly lacked the relevant skills and knew nothing about this metaphysics, asking one after another: "What's this? Andrew, speak human."
Caleb was also somewhat puzzled. Andrew had performed divination at least a hundred times before; as a rigorous commander, he had also quietly memorized and learned, and could now barely recognize the basic meanings represented by the square symbols on those copper coins.
But the pattern arranged by the coins this time was completely different from the smooth patterns in his memory.
"Indeed, Andrew," Caleb asked in a deep voice, "why is this result completely different from before?"
"Nonsense, of course it's different," Andrew raised his head, his expression grave, forgoing even honorifics. "To put it in terms you can understand, all previous divination results showed that we had the 'Planet Mom' secretly escorting us. Even if we ran into trouble, at worst it was a minor auspicious sign, turning danger into safety. But this time—it's ominous, pure ominous."
Everyone's expressions changed. Andrew had used this skill at least a hundred times; ever since this secret mission to sabotage nodes began, it had never failed. The sudden disappearance of that feeling of being favored by the Emperor cast a shadow over everyone's hearts.
"Don't panic, maybe it's just bad feng shui for this direction," Andrew quickly gathered up the coins and briefly stated, "I'll try another target and time slot."
Then, he began shaking the copper coins in his hands again, muttering other key nodes along Typhus's defense line and different operation times.
However, as the coins landed time and again, Andrew's brow furrowed tighter, cold sweat streaming down his forehead.
"MrBeast Bless this yeast..."
"Gong Yi Tanpai..."
"DING! ... YOOOOOOO!"
"This is a dead hexagram! Nagasaki, Okinawa, Hokkaido, Yokohama.... Tempura, Sushi, Sashimi!"
The results grew worse each time. When testing one of the seemingly weakly defended sewage hub nodes, it actually directly produced a terrifying hexagram of "total annihilation, ten deaths and no life."
Finally, Andrew dejectedly lowered the copper coins in his hand, looked at the surrounding teammates and Chapter Master, and helplessly summarized: "No good man, the path of fate is blocked.
For most time slots and targets, if we go with our current strength, the results will at least not be as relaxed as before. Forget about succeeding without alerting anyone and retreating smoothly; if we must go this time, we have to prepare ourselves to be discovered, besieged, and—not coming back."
"Andrew, could it be... a bug in your skill?" A Liberator player couldn't help but break the silence, scratching his helmet. "Or is the magnetic field here too chaotic, interfering with your metaphysical algorithm? After all, we were sailing smooth as silk before—there's no reason for it to suddenly jump to nightmare difficulty, right?"
Hearing this, Andrew jumped up like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
"Bullshit!" He pointed at the copper coins on the ground, his tone heated. "You can question my character, call me an unlucky bastard, a chunni or say I've got terrible luck, but you can absolute NOT question my skill mechanics! This is a system-verified skill, a truth tested by countless real combats!"
Andrew took a deep breath, pointing at the marked death nodes on the holographic map, his expression incomparably grave:
"Brothers, trust me on this one. This time we're really going to get hit hard. The hexagram shows that no matter which route we take or how we walk, as long as we still want to sabotage Typhus's nodes, what lies ahead is an inescapable net. That big fat bastard is definitely waiting up ahead to invite us for a bowl of soup."
At this, everyone fell silent.
Since there was no issue with Andrew's skill, it meant the dungeon difficulty had been ramped up to extreme. For Helldivers used to killing anything as long as it had a health bar, this scenario—knowing there were tigers in the mountains—was thrilling, but they still had to account for the costs.
After all, Astartes accounts were currently a rare resource; whether one could respawn as an Astartes after dying once was still an unknown.
Thus, the Helldivers' gazes unanimously shifted toward the Chapter Master leaning against the wall.
"Chapter Master, make the call," someone spoke up to ask. "Do we fight or do we leave? The situation feels a bit off."
Even though they were all battle-hardened pro Helldivers, at such a critical moment, they still habitually turned to Caleb.
In the eyes of the Helldivers, although everyone was an Astartes, if one were to truly count "playtime," this native NPC who had lived for hundreds of years was the indisputable "hardcore veteran player."
In a high-tier match involving plot directions and strategic decisions, listening to a veteran like him was definitely the right call.
Caleb did not answer right away. His deep eyes swept across the face of every warrior, his breathing beneath his helmet steady and powerful.
The silence lasted for an entire minute.
Finally, Caleb stood up, his gray power armor letting out a low rumble. He walked over to the holographic map and struck his finger heavily onto the sewage hub node that Andrew had marked as "total annihilation, ten deaths and no life."
"If it were for survival, we should retreat right now," Caleb's voice was calm, yet carried an indisputable weight. "But we are Astartes, the Emperor's edge, and Liberators reborn for vengeance."
He turned around, looking straight at these warriors from another world: "If an Astartes shrinks back at the slightest difficulty, if we flinch and hesitate just because the enemy is prepared, then what kind of Space Marines are we? The reason we are powerful is not merely because of this power armor, nor merely because of the bolters in our hands."
Caleb clenched his fist, the hand servo motors of his power armor emitting a hum: "The most powerful aspect of a Space Marine lies in the might of our will. It lies in stepping into life through death, even when knowing death is certain!"
These words resonated powerfully, echoing in the narrow bunker.
The Helldivers stunned for a moment, and then burst into a low yet passionate cheer.
"Well said! Chapter Master, I'm with you!"
"Damn right! What the hell are we afraid of? Back when we were competing for this upgrade slot, which one of us didn't crawl out from a pile of corpses?"
"Exactly, I love high difficulty in games! Even if that lantern-holding bastard who rubs his face is waiting up ahead, I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind!"
"I'm sick of easy mode anyway. Since it's a guaranteed death match, let's see if we can trade ourselves for a big catch!"
The atmosphere instantly turned from heavy to fiery. These Helldivers were all elites of Perditia, having completed at least the previous high-difficulty task—one that was nearly impossible for mortals, namely chopping off the heads of ten Orks in the wasteland with nothing but a tactical knife—to earn the qualification of becoming Liberators.
And in combat against real Space Marines, they had already proven their courage. Though their behavior sometimes looked like a suicide rush, that unyielding spirit of "if I die I'll just try again until I chop you to death" was truly etched into their bones.
Expecting this bunch of lunatics to back down from difficulty was a total joke.
Looking at the scene before him, a warm current couldn't help but surge in Caleb's heart.
Although these "new brothers" from Perditia were vastly different from the solemn and rigid culture of his former Chapter—always speaking obscure jargon and acting with a careless casualness—
At least, in their attitude toward death and formidable foes, they were no different from those departed heroic spirits.
In spirit, they were indisputably steadfast.
"Is this the new Chapter granted to me by the Emperor..." Caleb thought silently to himself, an imperceptible smile curving at the corner of his lips. "Perhaps, this is precisely the reason we can win this war."
"In that case," Caleb drew the power sword at his waist, the blade flashing with a cold, sharp gleam, "Andrew, let us advance toward that most dangerous node—the one most heavily guarded by the enemy. There must lie the thing most precious to Chaos."
The murky green toxic fog wriggled like living tentacles, crawling slowly through the abandoned industrial pipes. The Liberator squad moved like a pack of gray phantoms, silently threading through this land of death.
Although Caleb had issued the order to advance, the path ahead was just as perilous as Andrew's dark hexagram had portended—a nightmare step by step.
"Halt!"
Caleb raised his fist abruptly, and the entire squad froze instantly, blending into the surrounding shadows like statues.
Barely ten meters ahead of them, the marsh that originally seemed empty suddenly churned. Several lurking Nurglings shrieked as they broke through the water's surface, followed immediately by a squad of Plague Marines covered in rotting organs turning out from behind a hidden ruin. Had they taken a few more steps forward, they would have walked straight into this meticulously laid ambush.
And while passing through a narrow corridor, the player walking at the very front almost triggered an extremely concealed bio-tripwire—a living nerve cord disguised as an intestine. Once touched, the toxic-exploder bugs buried in the walls on both sides would instantly fill the hallway.
Along the way, similar close calls occurred multiple times. Every instance was like dancing on a razor's edge; a single misstep meant absolute damnation. Though they managed to dodge or resolve every hazard without actual harm in the end, it stretched everyone's nerves to the absolute limit, forcing their alertness to its peak.
After confirming that the surrounding area was temporarily safe, the Helldivers' comms channel finally couldn't hold back and exploded with chatter.
"Holy crap, that was way too intense, like tickling a tiger's tail," a player wielding a meltagun said with lingering fear. "That patrol group just now—you could tell they were elite mobs just by looking at their gear. If we really bumped into them, even if we didn't die, we'd lose a layer of skin."
"Man, if only Full-Band were here," another player sighed, his tone filled with regret. "He maxed out his recon skills. If we had a teammate like that for real-time scouting, we wouldn't be this passive, feeling around like blind men touching an elephant."
This topic immediately resonated with everyone.
"Yeah, when we were forming the party, we only thought about stacking DPS," another person couldn't help but chime in. "We thought having Andrew, the 'Grand Prophet,' meant the macro direction wouldn't go wrong, so one slot for information was enough. Who could've guessed this dungeon difficulty scales so insanely dynamically?"
While keeping a vigilant eye on the compass in his hand, Andrew said helplessly in the channel: "Brothers, the skill isn't an X-ray wallhack. I can calculate which path is an absolute curse, but I can't calculate whether a camper with a flamethrower is crouching around the corner. Macro strategy and micro tactical scouting are two completely different things."
"It really was poor planning on our part."
A player carrying a heavy bolter conducted a deep self-criticism: "We were too greedy for damage—brought one extra heavy firepower guy and one less scout. On high-difficulty infiltration missions like this, not having real-time vision is pure imprisonment. We've got to remember this lesson: next time we raid like this, we can never skip the recon slot."
"Right, if we get a mission like this again, even if we have one less DPS, we've gotta pull those recon-specialized guys over..."
Caleb listened silently to these strange tactical discussions in the channel. Though he didn't understand terms like "DPS," "raid," or "wallhack," he understood the core message: his warriors were reflecting on their tactical configuration errors and rapidly summarizing their experience.
This brought him a sense of gratification. In this death-filled universe, only the warriors who adapt to the environment and correct their mistakes the fastest can survive the longest.
"Stay focused," Caleb's voice cut into the channel, interrupting the Helldivers' chatter. "Up ahead is the death trap Andrew spoke of. Since we have no scouts, we will carve a path with our bolters and power swords."
"Copy that, Chapter Master!" the Helldivers responded in unison. Though they were regretting not bringing a scout just a moment ago, as they faced actual battle, excitement and bloodlust burned bright in their eyes once more.
Finally, after navigating through layers of dense mist and deadly biological traps, the Liberator squad arrived at the coordinates calculated by Andrew.
The scene before them, however, left everyone stunned. This crucial sewage hub node stood quietly in the middle of a deathly silent open clearing. Around it, not only were there no nauseating Nurglings, but there wasn't even a basic patrol squad of Plague Marines.
Only a massive, rusted mechanical pump beat rhythmically, emitting a roar that sounded like the ragged gasps of a terminally ill patient.
"No one's guarding it?" A player held his bolter, looking around and speaking with confusion in the comms channel. "That doesn't make scientific sense. Is it an empty fort strategy? Or does that fat bastard think this place is too well-hidden to need guards?"
"No."
Caleb's voice dropped instantly. Beneath his gray helmet, his eyes stared intently at the overly quiet area as a strong sense of crisis surged in his heart. As a veteran of a hundred battles, he knew all too well what this eerie tranquility on a battlefield signified.
"This is the worst-case scenario..." Caleb said gravely, tightening his grip on his power sword. "All hands listen up, do not hesitate, strike now! Then leave as fast as possible!"
Hearing the Chapter Master's command, Andrew dared not delay. He quickly stepped forward two paces, the copper coins in his hand spinning rapidly under the faint glow of warp energy as he muttered incantations, calculating the energy flow of the massive machine before him.
"Bust a nut and clear a path... found it!" Andrew snapped his finger toward an inconspicuous, rusted valve beneath the mechanical pump. "That's the vital weakness of the energy backflow! Destroy that spot, and the entire node will overload and self-destruct!"
Just as Andrew finished speaking, a player in the team codenamed Slacker strode forward. He didn't use a bolter; instead, he reached out and drew the sword that had remained sheathed at his waist.
It was an ancient, ornate longsword. For a two-meter-tall Astartes clad in power armor, it was merely a comfortable single-handed sword, but in the hands of a ordinary mortal, it would unquestionably be an unwieldy two-handed broadsword.
As the blade left its scabbard, a scorching heat instantly dispelled the surrounding cold, toxic fog.
Name: Durandal
Type: Weapon
Quality: Legendary
Attack Power: Extremely High
Attribute: Fire
Note: One of the Eight Divine Regalia forged by humanity to fight dragons, also known as the "Sword of Blazing Fire." A divine artifact with a crimson blade that unleashes raging flames when swung.
The crimson blade resembled flowing magma in the dim underground space, and the gem embedded in the crossguard flickered with a heart-stopping red glow.
Slacker took a deep breath as the servo-muscles of his power armor ran at full capacity. Guided by Andrew, he raised Durandal high, preparing to chop through the critical valve in a single strike just as they had destroyed other nodes, completely detonating this plague hub.
However, at the precise moment the blade was about to fall, without a single warning sign, he abruptly forced a pivot in his momentum! The crimson broadsword originally aimed at the valve traced an impossible trajectory in mid-air, parrying back-rightward with a howling gust of wind!
Clang!
A deafening sound of clashing metal exploded, and a terrifying shockwave instantly blew away the surrounding toxic mist.
A massive, rusted scythe radiating a heavy, foul stench of rot and death materialized abruptly in mid-air, pressing down mercilessly against Durandal's crimson blade. Where the two weapons met, holy flames and corrupting toxins wildly eroded each other, emitting sizzles and popping crackles.
The owner of that scythe—a towering figure stepping straight out of a nightmare—slowly revealed himself within the mist.
"Good reactions."
It was a deep, buzzing voice, sounding like ten thousand flies beating their wings in unison. The owner of this voice was none other than the First Captain of the Death Guard, the favored champion of Nurgle: Typhus.
His bloated, terrifying Terminator armor was draped with rotting trophies, and the optics on his helmet flickered with malicious light. Right now, he was looking at the gray Astartes who had blocked his lethal blow with a hint of surprise.
"I really didn't expect you to block that," Typhus tilted his head slightly, applying even more force onto his magic scythe. "What is your name?"
The player didn't say a word. Facing a terrifying pressure capable of making an ordinary Space Marine tremble, he merely used the immense force pressing down from the scythe to execute a swift tactical roll, instantly opening up distance from Typhus and leaping nimbly back to Chapter Master Caleb's side.
The very next second, without needing any verbal communication or orders from Caleb—
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
The remaining eleven Liberator Helldivers raised their bolters and melta weapons simultaneously, their muzzles spewing furious tongues of flame. Dense volleys of bolter shells poured toward Typhus like a torrential rainstorm.
Faced with this sudden focused fire, Typhus let out a bone-chilling chuckle. Instead of retreating, he swung his giant scythe, sweeping away the barrage before him like swatting flies. The bolter shells capable of tearing through ceramite armor exploded against his body, leaving only shallow dents that were quickly filled in by squirming, rotten flesh.
"Is that all you've got?" Typhus's voice sounded like rusted gears grinding. "Too weak, far too weak!"
Before his voice even faded, a crimson sword beam slashed toward his face like lightning.
Slacker closed in like a phantom, wielding Durandal. This legendary weapon was radiating astonishing heat, distorting the air around the blade. Simultaneously, Caleb moved as well, his power sword emitting a high-pitched whine as he paired with Slacker in a perfect pincer movement, aiming straight for Typhus's lower stance.
Clang! Clang!
Two crisp metallic impacts sounded almost at once. Typhus was forced to pull back his scythe to parry. Although his raw strength far surpassed these two gray Astartes, their coordination was seamless.
Whenever he wanted to swing his scythe for a wide sweep, Caleb's power sword would hit his point of leverage with perfect timing. And whenever he attempted to release swarms from the Destroyer Hive, that flaming Durandal would bite in like a rabid dog, forcing him to divert his attention.
What surprised him even more were the surrounding Helldivers who seemed to be mindlessly dealing damage.
Every time Typhus attempted to cast Nurgle psychic powers or swing a lethal blow, strange skills would interrupt his rhythm.
"How... is this possible?"
A sense of absurdity rose in Typhus's mind. Though these attacks dealt minimal damage to him, he found himself completely unable to dodge them all!
As Nurgle's favored champion, he had long fused into one with the Destroyer Hive, possessing a near-immortal body. Even when facing the fiercest artillery fire, he was used to tanking it head-on because he didn't need to dodge, nor did he deign to.
But this group was different. Their attack angles were impossibly tricky, and their coordination was seamless, as if they had rehearsed it countless times. It felt like being relentlessly tangled by countless annoying fleas, every single hit landing precisely on his joints, visual blind spots, or healing wounds.
Not wanting to dodge and being unable to dodge were two entirely different concepts.
Especially that guy wielding the crimson longsword. Every swing of that sword named Durandal carried a holy atmosphere that he instinctively loathed. Though a single strike was far from fatal, Typhus keenly sensed that if he allowed that blade to hack at him a hundred times, that special fire might even scorch his soul, leaving behind permanent injuries that even Grandfather Nurgle's blessing couldn't easily heal.
Keep in mind, even his Primarch father, Mortarion, wanted to kill him but couldn't pull it off.
"Interesting."
The playfulness in Typhus's eyes gradually faded, replaced by chilling murder intent. He felt he had mapped out these gray Astartes' limits—perfect coordination, weird tactics, top-tier equipment, but ultimate still just powerful mortals. Before a true Chosen Champion, these clever tricks were futile in the end.
"Enough."
With a low roar, a terrifying psychic storm erupted abruptly with Typhus at its center.
Countless buzzing Destroyer flies poured out from every vent in his armor, turning into a black tornado that swept across the entire arena.
It was not merely a physical impact, but corruption and pollution striking straight at the soul.
Boom!
Before this overwhelming force, whether it was Caleb's exquisite swordplay, Durandal's fiery slashes, or the fancy skills of the other Helldivers, everything was mercilessly crushed.
Everyone was hurled backward like kites with broken strings, crashing heavily into the surrounding walls and pipes, their power armor emitting sickening screeches of twisting metal.
"Cough cough... Holy shit, he's that OP?" A player struggled to crawl up from the ground, unable to hold back a curse. "Is this guy even human? He's straight-up wallhacking!"
"Easy, easy, stay calm," another player nearby said. Though he had been thrown into a dizzy haze and his helmet had cracked open, his tone remained completely relaxed.
"In Soulslikes, which boss do you kill without dying a dozen times first? For a major plot boss like this, this power level is pretty standard."
"To be honest, I think his stats are a bit low. He couldn't even wipe all of us in one hit."
Typhus looked at the squad lying scattered before him yet still burning with high morale. Facing overwhelming power, they ought to feel despair and choose submission!
He let out a cold snort, deciding to turn up the heat to see just how long these guys could maintain their fake relaxed posture.
Typhus had evidently lost the last shred of his patience for this kind of teasing, "scaper-style" chipping away at his health.
His solitary eye flashed with a chilling, eerie green light. The buzzing of the Destroyer Hive spiked abruptly, drowning out even the roar of the surrounding mechanical pumps.
An even thicker, more lethal wave of Warp pestilence gathered upon his magic scythe; with this absolute force, he intended to completely erase this group of impudent gray Astartes from the physical plane, just like crushing bugs.
"For the Emperor!"
Just as that devastating blow was about to be unleashed, Chapter Master Caleb let out a roar. The power armor engine, already operating at full capacity, emitted a piercing scream, and his entire body vaulted forward like a gray cannonball. The power sword in his hand erupted with unprecedented brilliance, clashing directly head-on against Typhus's magic scythe!
Clang!
The immense impact instantly shattered Caleb's vambraces, and blood spewed from the fractures, yet he clamped down hard, locking that terrifying giant scythe in place without retreating half a step.
"Foolish."
Typhus looked down at the struggling Chapter Master before him, letting out a cold snort: "Since you're in such a rush to die, I'll grant your wish first before cleaning up those little scraps."
His bloated arm trembled slightly, the sheer force instantly dissolving Caleb's defensive stance. Immediately following that, the magic scythe reversed its edge, coming down to sever Caleb's head.
At that split second of life or death, Slacker's figure suddenly blurred.
The next second, his entire body transformed into an erratic, shifting gray mist!
This wisp of gray mist wrapped around the crimson sword aura, ignoring the iron-corroding plague aura surrounding Typhus, and rushed directly between Typhus and Caleb at a speed defying the laws of physics.
Instantly, the gray mist solidified, and Slacker reappeared. Riding this bizarre momentum, Durandal in his hand erupted with dazzling flames, carrying a piercing whistle as it slashed savagely right into the joint of Typhus's waist and abdomen!
Screeech—!
The divine flames clashed with Nurgle's rotting flesh, producing a teeth-gritting scorching hiss as foul black blood splattered out.
Simultaneously, the shockwave of the blow did not dissipate; the crimson sword energy swept onward, accurately cleaving right into the gap of the critical valve behind him.
Boom!
The sound of the slash and the explosion rang out in unison. The energy node that Typhus had consciously and subconsciously guarded all along was utterly pulverized under the might of the divine artifact.
Bloodhound Step
Skill Card Attribute: Active Skill, Permanently Mastered
Effect: Transform into smoke to dash a short distance, granting invincibility frames during the movement.
Note: Don't think about spamming it consecutively to dodge dense attacks like machine-gun fire; I specifically nerfed its invincibility frames. If you do that, your fate will likely be getting riddled into a sieve by bullets.
"Scumbag!"
The burning agony of the divine flames on his wounds and the destruction of the node drove Typhus into a sudden frenzy. Though such injuries were hardly fatal to him, the humiliation of being toyed with by ants completely stripped away his rationality.
Instead of using his magic scythe, he directly countered with a heavy punch imbued with dense warp energy, slamming it fiercely into Slacker's chest.
Thud!
With a dull impact, Slacker was sent flying backward like a ragdoll, crashing heavily into the ruins. The power armor on his chest was completely caved in, Durandal slipped from his hand and stabbed into the ground nearby, and his entire body plunged straight into a near-death state.
Watching the opponent reduced to this miserable state from a casual backhand blow, Typhus's mood calmed slightly. He walked slowly toward the ruins, looking down at the struggling gray figure from above.
"You fought to the death, exhausted all those petty little tricks, and even used that sword, only to deal a minor, insignificant scratch to me," Typhus pointed at the rapidly squirming, healing charred cut on his waist, his tone filled with absolute disdain. "And a casual blow from me brings you to the brink of death. Understand now? This is the unbridgeable chasm between a Chosen Champion and you lot."
Amidst the ruins, Slacker raised his head with difficulty. Half of his helmet was shattered, exposing a blood-stained chin, yet he showed no fear or despair.
He merely coughed twice harshly, spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and fixed his gaze entirely on the wound on Typhus's waist that had yet to fully heal.
"You're injured."
The tone was chillingly calm, as simple as stating a plain fact.
Typhus blinked, then let out a scoff of amusement: "So what?"
"You're injured," Slacker stated in the calm voice of common sense, "so you can die. So you can be killed."
For the Helldivers, this was the ironclad rule.
Even if you are a god, even if you are a demonic primarch, as long as you bleed, as long as your health bar moves—even by a fraction of a percent—it means you are a target that can be killed.
Looking at the dying mortal before him, at the frantic fighting spirit in his eyes that hadn't extinguished but instead burned brighter, an inexplicable sense of unease welled up inside Typhus.
Then, that unease turned into deeper fury.
Typhus laughed out of extreme anger, raising his magic scythe once more:
"Expecting fools like you blindly loyal to understand what divine power and immortality mean was indeed too extravagant! Since that's the case, take your ridiculous theory and go meet your Corpse-Emperor!"
Just as that magic scythe, reeking of stench and death, was about to sever the head, Andrew, who had been chanting mystical nonsense the entire time, abruptly opened both eyes.
His eyes held neither the typical bloodlust of an Astartes nor the madness born from contact with the Warp that psychers often carried; instead, they radiated a bizarre, lucid clarity.
"Storm, earth, and fire, heed my call!"
Andrew slammed his palm violently against the ground. Some kind of golden rune flashed across his palm for a split second, and then he gathered strength in his core and roared at the top of his lungs: "Rise!"
Following this roar, more than a dozen slips of yellow paper covered in cinnabar talismans materialized out of thin air. Like self-aware flying swords, they whistled through the air and shot straight toward Typhus's face.
"Hm?"
Typhus instinctively sensed something was wrong. The energy attached to these seemingly fragile scraps of paper didn't match any psychic form he was familiar with.
He instinctively swung his magic scythe, attempting to use Nurgle's corruption to disintegrate the paper slips.
However, the moment the murky green plague mist touched the golden talisman papers, two diametrically opposed energies collided with extreme violence.
Sizzle-sizzle-boom!
There was no expected corrosion; instead, it was like pouring boiling oil into ice water, instantly detonating a dazzling shockwave mixing golden light and black fog. This force lacked massive lethality, but possessed immense repulsive power, forcibly shoving Typhus's massive bulk backward by several meters.
"Fall back!"
Taking advantage of the moment Typhus's vision was obstructed, Andrew formed hand seals at breakneck speed.
On the ground, columns of ghostly blue light shot up into the sky, instantly locking onto all the Astartes present—including the near-death Slacker and the heavily injured Chapter Master Caleb.
The laws of space were forcibly warped and shortened in that instant.
Hum—
The air trembled violently. As the smoke and dust from the shockwave settled, the previously bustling battlefield instantly plunged into deathly silence.
Aside from scattered shell casings, bloodstains, and ruins, all the Astartes had vanished into thin air, leaving Typhus standing alone in place, his magic scythe still frozen mid-swing, looking somewhat comical.
The flies of the Destroyer Hive buzzed around his ears, seeming to query the whereabouts of their prey.
Typhus slowly pulled back his magic scythe, his solitary eye scanning the empty surroundings, finally landing on a fragment of a torn talisman paper fluttering down, not fully burned.
"What bizarre psychic power..." he muttered to himself, picking up the half-talisman. The red patterns dissolved into ashes the moment he touched them, as if violently repelling his touch. "Where on earth did these fellows learn these tricks?"
Aside from being slightly perplexed, he didn't feel overwhelmingly enraged.
Following his usual temper, being toyed with and having his prey escape would have had him roaring and smashing everything in sight. But this burst of anger merely circled his chest before inexplicably dissipating.
It wasn't that he wasn't annoyed, but rather that he had already raged enough just moments ago.
Moreover, ever since arriving in this cursed place called Perditia, such anger had flared up countless times. Every single time he thought victory was within his grasp, these damn "Helldivers" always managed to pull some brand-new stunt.
If he flew into a blind rage every time, even Nurgle's chosen champion would grow weary. Even if the capacity for such emotions remained, Typhus's flesh and mind had grown somewhat numb.
"Hmph, you can run for a moment, but not for a lifetime."
Typhus crushed the ashes in his hand, a sense of release unexpectedly rising in his heart.
Although this clash failed to wipe out the enemy entirely, it also laid bare their trump cards—since all their trump cards were played out, it meant they had been driven into a dead end.
"It seems the Helldivers' tricks go no further than these Astartes..." Typhus thought to himself, heavy breathing echoing beneath his faceplate, "We will win."
He turned around, dragging his heavy magic scythe as he walked deeper into the core.
Accompanied by a disorienting sensation of warped space, the oppressive environment filled with stench and rust vanished in an instant. It was replaced by a relatively dry, abandoned hall; though the scent of gunpowder still lingered in the air, it was at least free of swirling plague spores.
Everyone felt their legs give out, stumbling and falling to the ground as the sudden exhaustion of having narrowly escaped death rushed over them.
"Phew... we made it alive."
A player wiped cold sweat from his helmet, letting out a long sigh of relief.
Standing in the center of the group, Andrew gave a smooth flick of his nonexistent robes. Though his power armor was covered in scratches and grime, it didn't stop him from striking a posture he deemed suitably profound. Raising an eyebrow with a hint of pride, he asked, "How about that? Pretty good 'Ground Shrinking' technique from yours truly, huh?"
"Holy crap, that was awesome, Andrew!" A nearby player gave a trembling thumb-up, before asking in confusion, "Though, if you had a move like this, why didn't you mention it earlier? If you'd pulled it out sooner, we wouldn't have been beaten like dogs by that giant green fat bastard."
"Ahem, truth be told, I haven't had this skill for very long," Andrew cleared his throat with a slight lack of confidence, explaining, "Honestly, I wasn't entirely sure of it myself. If this thing deviated even a little bit, or if the warp fluctuations got slightly messy, our gang wouldn't be standing here right now—we'd be a pile of evenly distributed Astartes shredded meat on the floor."
Hearing this, everyone felt a sudden chill run down their spines, realizing he had literally gambled their lives on a coin toss.
Seeing their reaction, Andrew quickly added, "Though it's a special situation right now. Our home planet is a bit strange, as if the energy of the entire world is opening its arms to me. I have a feeling that as long as I want to establish connection, it's green lights all the way, without needing any effort to channel it."
He pointed to the ground beneath their feet: "That's why I dared to give it a shot, and sure enough, it worked. But this is just a limited-time trial version. Once this battle is over and that buff disappears, or if we go to another planet, I would never dare to use it carelessly. That really would kill us."
While the Helldivers were still heatedly discussing this narrow escape and the novel setup, a suppressed, heavy voice came from a corner of the hall.
Caleb had not taken part in the discussion.
At this moment, he was kneeling on one knee, holding the blood-drenched and deeply comatose Slacker in his arms with profound grief. His once-resolute face was now filled with pain and self-blame, and the hum of his power armor's servo motors sounded almost like his suppressed weeping.
The others noticed the commotion on his side, stopped talking, and gathered around.
"Another one of my brothers... died right before my eyes, and I was powerless to stop it." Caleb, was engaged 100% in the storyline, as usual.
Caleb looked down at the warrior in his arms, who had been heavily wounded by Typhus while shielding everyone.
His voice was terrifyingly raspy: "His chest plate is completely caved in, both of his hearts are shattered, and Nurgle's deadly toxins are raging through his blood vessels. Not even Astartes physiology can survive injuries like this... His time is up."
The surrounding atmosphere instantly turned heavy. To NPCs, death meant the absolute end—especially when facing Nurgle's corruption, where even one's soul might find no peace.
Andrew felt uncomfortable watching this scene. Though he knew Helldivers could respawn, to a native Chapter Master like Caleb, this grief was genuine.
He let out a sigh, stepped forward, and patted Caleb's shoulder armor: "Chapter Master, please accept my condolences. We are furious and grieved in our hearts as well, but right now..."
Mid-sentence, Andrew's voice stopped dead, his whole body freezing as if turned to stone.
Caleb clearly understood what Andrew meant, and he too knew what needed to be done in a battlefield environment like this. The Chapter Master took a deep breath, fighting back his grief as he nodded: "You are right, Librarian Brother. Evacuation is the priority right now; we cannot let our brother's remains fall into the hands of those heretics. Harvest his gene-seed, and then bury him on the spot... Er, that's what you were going to say, right?"
Only after speaking did Caleb realize Andrew had gone completely silent halfway through his sentence. He couldn't help but look up in confusion.
Only to see Andrew staring wide-eyed at Slacker's body, as if he had seen something completely unimaginable.
"Chapter Master..." Andrew swallowed hard, his tone turning somewhat bizarre, "It seems our brother can still be saved."
As it turned out, the instant he stepped closer just now, a floating line of glowing system text had suddenly popped up above Slacker's head, followed by a string of a countdown that was ticking down at an excruciatingly slow pace.
> Your companion "Slacker" has entered a Downed State. If he is not treated soon, he may face death.
Andrew blinked, carefully double-checking that countdown.
The countdown was ticking down ridiculously slowly—about ten seconds passed before that number ticked down by a single second.
"Is this a countdown based on real-world time?!" Andrew was utterly shocked inside, rapidly running the math in his head.
If converted at a time flow rate where one second in the real world equaled ten seconds in-game, wouldn't a 72-hour real-time countdown be equivalent to... an entire month in-game?!
Andrew's cheek twitched.
A downed, near-death state that lasts for a whole month? Who the hell could actually die from this?! As long as he isn't thrown into a star and melted down, he could literally crawl his way to a hospital!
The Helldiver player group had never experienced such a mechanism before—usually, dying meant instant respawning. Could it be... this was a special mechanism unique to being converted into an Astartes?
"He can still live?" Caleb looked at the brother in his arms who was no longer breathing, whose heartbeat had completely ceased, his face filled with utter disbelief. "His vital signs have completely vanished..."
"I think he can."
Andrew said with absolute certainty, pointing at Slacker's pale face, "Trust me, Chapter Master. I can feel that his soul's flame is still burning, and it's burning... well, pretty brightly. It can burn for at least a month."
Caleb froze.
If anyone else had said this, he would definitely think they had lost their mind. But the person standing before him was the mysterious Librarian who had just performed a miraculous piece of psychic power to pull everyone out of death's grip. In the Warhammer universe, the words of a Librarian often represented a form of prophecy or revelation from the Warp.
Since this brother with powerful psychic abilities said so, could there really be a miracle?
The despair in Caleb's eyes was gradually replaced by a glimmer of hope. He held the brother in his arms tight once more and gave a solemn, resolute nod.
"Alright."
The Chapter Master stood up, securely slinging the near-death Slacker onto his back, his voice unwavering: "In that case, we are taking him home."
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