Chapter 20: Icy Blood

“Axé? Axé!”

Scrambling up from the ground, Soshian’s first instinct was to search for his comrade. He eventually found the familiar figure amidst a heap of scattered metal fragments and congealed viscera.

“Axé! Brother! Brother!”

Soshian rushed over, but received no response. When he removed Axé’s helmet, he was utterly devastated.

The man, who once possessed a rugged countenance, now had a face completely scorched; his lips were melted and fused together, his ears had become swollen lumps of flesh hanging from his face, and his eyes had turned into two charred hollows with translucent crystalline structures dangling within.

Strictly speaking, almost not an inch of Axé’s skin remained intact. To protect Soshian, he had absorbed the brunt of the impact.

Soshian finally realized what had caused Axé’s strange behavior earlier.

Even when blind and deaf, he had continued to attack, determined to drag one last enemy into hell before his fall.

Soshian wanted to perform a simple burial for his comrade, but he found himself powerless to do so. He could only place the helmet back onto Axé and pick up the other man's chainsword. By now, he held no hope of survival, but before he died, he would use his friend's blade to kill more xenos.

As he stood up, a strange current of air suddenly swept across the deathly silent xenos fortress, swirling up clouds of fine dust.

With blood-stained footsteps, Soshian walked determinedly toward the direction the current originated from. He encountered no enemies along the way, seeing only many corpses—bodies intact but slumped lifelessly on the ground.

He suddenly realized that these metallic dead seemed to have had their energy abruptly drained by something.

As the thought crossed his mind, a strange palpitation throbbed in his two hearts, followed by a sudden, violent surge in his throat.

“Ugh—”

Caught off guard, he opened his mouth, allowing the icy sensation in his throat to erupt.

From the grille of his helmet, a spray of ash-like blood suddenly erupted. The blood splashed onto the ground, still emitting a freezing mist.

After coughing up the blood, Soshian felt as if all the strength had been drained from his body. His knees buckled, and he collapsed to the ground, gasping for over ten seconds before he could barely regain a shred of consciousness.

He felt as though he had been placed in an ice cellar for an entire month; his limbs grew cold and stiff, making even moving a finger an immense struggle.

It was only then that he noticed his temperature readings indicated his current body temperature was only 19°C—a mortal would have long since frozen to death.

Initially, he thought his power armor had been breached, exposing him to the vacuum for too long.

However, when he ran a status check, he found the situation was not that dire—at least, it shouldn't have caused this state.

Soshian shook his heavy head forcefully and exerted every ounce of strength to stand up from the ground—he still had a mission to fulfill; he had to support the Chapter Master.

Suddenly, he felt his nose bleeding. Subconsciously, he raised a hand to wipe it, but the back of his hand only collided with the cold surface of his helmet.

He stopped to try and catch his breath.

At that moment, a memory surfaced, like the touch of a non-existent ghost.

In hunger, the craving for a bowl of hot meat soup; in cold, the longing for a clean blanket; in loneliness, the inner yearning for a warm smile.

An unfamiliar woman opening her arms to him, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

That was...

Who?

A child sobbing, stumbling to grab a toy, a... Space Marine.

These images persisted, accompanied by a whisper.

*It wants you to stop, it wants to catch you, you must dispel it and keep moving.*

“I am alone,” Soshian murmured to the non-existent target in a daze.

“I cannot continue... it is meaningless.”

*You are never alone, we are all with you, forever.*

“I don't understand.”

*You will understand. Now, move.*

Just then, something slid out from his gorget. Soshian watched it sway gently, suspended from a silver chain, and suddenly felt it was utterly foreign.

This was the only object he had retained after transitioning from a mortal to a Space Marine: a silver ring engraved with a pattern resembling a family crest. Because it had once belonged to a mortal, Soshian could not wear it and could only carry it on his person.

But he could no longer remember who had given it to him. Was it that strange woman?

Soshian looked up, his eyes shrouded by an intense golden radiance that made it impossible to look directly at it.

Seconds later, as his pupils adjusted to the blinding light, he realized a massive object was ascending into the high heavens.

It was a monster resembling a human form, with slender limbs and surrounded by a halo of liquid energy. A single movement from it could trigger powerful energy shocks.

And the first thing it did upon rising was to destroy the World Engine.

Soshian finally understood where that massive tremor had come from.

Without hesitation, he began to run toward the direction in which the energy-form giant was ascending.

“Take cover!” Amurad shouted, wielding his twin axes.

“Everyone, take cover—”

But his warning came too late. The mechanism binding the Star God fragment was torn to shreds in an instant, and the violent explosive shockwave possessed the power of a vortex torpedo.

For a few brief seconds, the Chapter Master of the Astral Knights lost consciousness.

In the next second, a potent cocktail of combat stimulants was pumped into his muscles, and his gene-enhanced physiology awakened him almost immediately.

He realized he was lying on his back, staring into the star-studded void. The warning systems of his power armor were ringing incessantly—the structure of his right shoulder plate was severely damaged, his right arm plate was bent, and his chest had sustained three puncture wounds.

Vital signs indicated low-level internal bleeding in his right arm and abdominal cavity, but there was almost no pain, as it had been suppressed by the stimulants and his enhanced nervous system.

Amurad realized something blurry was obscuring the right lens of his helmet; he suspected it was blood.

He sat up, the servos at the damaged locations emitting terrifying grinding noises.

The helmet of his power armor pushed aside the turbid smoke, dust, and misty organic matter that were blocking the frigid air, allowing him to breathe smoothly.

He scanned the area and found that massive amounts of unrecognizable viscera and metal fragments had coated almost every inch of the destroyed ground. The giant obelisks lay scattered like fallen sand dunes, and those terrible war machines were almost all paralyzed.

The massive impact had nearly killed everything; even superhumans like Space Marines found it difficult to survive at such close range.

However, they had only one minute to activate the melta bombs.

One minute—not even enough time to hide.

Just as he stood up, a figure appeared before him, staring with cold green eyes.

Simultaneously, a Gauss Disintegrator appeared, aimed directly at him.

Amurad lunged forward before the weapon could fire, shoving it aside, only for a beam of light to bury itself into the shattered floor beside him.

At the same time, Amurad kicked out, striking the chest of a space undead; a sound of breaking and struggling came from the xenos as it fell.

Amurad realized he was panting heavily, his body coursing with combat hormones and the tremors from being caught off guard. His bolter was long lost, leaving him with only his two power axes.

Their roar filled the bloody space.