Chapter 370: Greater Daemon of Chaos
Piercing psychic alarms and the mandatory notifications of security protocols spread throughout the Eternal Crusader's chain of command almost the instant the Navigator completed that terrifying metamorphosis.
On Ryo's sensor arrays and Sigismund's tactical display, the icon for the Navigator's spire instantly turned from a safe green to a flashing, deep crimson representing an extreme threat.
Without any need for communication, both men understood what had happened—the worst-case scenario had occurred.
Sigismund's reaction was as fast as lightning.
He immediately issued a highest-priority command via an encrypted channel to the squad of Templar Brethren stationed near the spire.
A squad of fully armed Black Templars Space Marines, moving with well-trained combat paces, arrived outside the magnificent and heavy doors of the Navigator's spire at the very first moment.
The design of the Navigator's spire highlighted its ruthless practicality at this moment.
It was not merely a luxurious residence granting the Navigator privilege and privacy, nor was it just a quarantine zone established out of fear of mutants.
At this moment, it had become the critical barrier protecting the entire battleship from the spread of internal Chaos corruption.
This door, forged from adamantium and reinforced ceramite, engraved with faint warding runes, was struggling to fulfill its final and most crucial duty—temporarily sealing that newborn, malicious entity inside.
However, the sounds of impacts and energy roars coming from within the doors clearly indicated that this barrier could not hold for long.
The fallen Navigator—or rather, the entity that had possessed his shell—had been completely infused with surging chaotic fel energy.
It was no longer that struggling old man, but a twisted, powerful monster brimming with the desire to destroy.
Every impact against the doors was accompanied by the piercing groans of metal and the violent flickering of energy runes. Hairline cracks glowing with an ominous green light even began to appear on the door panels.
What came from behind the doors were no longer human screams, but a blasphemous noise blending avian shrieks and demonic low growls.
The Black Templars warriors silently formed a defensive formation in front of the doors, bolters loaded and chainswords roaring to life.
They knew deeply that once these doors were breached, allowing that monster to rush into the ship's internal corridors, the consequences would be unimaginable.
They had to completely terminate this creation of Chaos right here, even at the cost of their lives.
The tense atmosphere solidified in the corridor, every second feeling like an eternity.
Just as the Black Templars warriors completed their defensive formation, the hammers of their bolters cocked, and the teeth of their chainswords began to spin at high speeds—
The heavy doors of the Navigator's spire completely shattered outward amidst a deafening explosion! They were not smashed open, but utterly annihilated by an indescribable shockwave blending tangible energy and pure malice.
The flying metal shards seemed to be pulled by an invisible force, bizarrely suspending in mid-air before being twisted and melted by an even stronger power.
The entity that stepped out of the breach caused even the battle-hardened, firmly devout Black Templars warriors to involuntarily feel a tremor at the soul level.
It was a hunched monster with a bird's head and a human body, but the oppressive aura its very existence exuded far exceeded the scope of ordinary Chaos creations.
Visible fel energy halos with constantly shifting colors roiled around its body. Its unfurled wings were not physical entities, but composed of twisted Warp energy and illusions of broken feathers.
What shattered the mind the most was that upon its body—from its neck to the wing membranes, and down to its limbs covered in blue-purple scales—it was densely packed with eyeballs of various shapes and sizes.
These eyes rolled frantically, their pupils reflecting different, reality-blaspheming terrifying visions.
Merely making eye contact with a fraction of those countless eyes caused indescribable mental pollution to surge forward like a tangible tide.
The warriors felt countless cold, viscous gazes pierce through their power armor, branding directly onto their souls.
The blasphemous whispers did not travel through the air, but rang directly inside their skulls, transforming into an undispersable noise.
Even more terrifying, fragments of grotesque knowledge that did not belong to the real universe were forcefully squeezing into their consciousness.
A warrior standing at the very front, the instant he locked eyes with a massive, bloodshot eye, thick, light-blue fuzz radiating a faint psychic glow began to grow at a visible rate from the seams of his power armor's pauldrons!
This terrifying mutation occurred in an instant, proving the true nature of the entity before them—this was a Greater Daemon of Chaos, a truly terrifying physical manifestation from the depths of the Warp, absolutely not something ordinary weapons could handle.
The Greater Daemon let out a howl mixing avian shrieks and abyssal echoes. Its eyeball-covered wings flapped violently, and the metal shards suspended in the air shot towards the Black Templars' lines like a torrential rain.
The battle erupted instantly amidst the despair of absolute disadvantage.
The defense line constructed by the Black Templars warriors with their iron-like wills was as fragile as paper before the unrivaled power of the Greater Daemon.
They roared the names of the Emperor and Dorn, pouring bolter rounds like raindrops and drawing deadly arcs with their chainswords. Yet, all of this posed almost no substantial threat to that blasphemous entity.
The Greater Daemon merely waved its wings of energy and illusion, and the surging chaotic fel energy detonated the bolter rounds in mid-air. The resulting shockwave instead sent several warriors flying.
With a casual sweep of its claws, artificer power armor was torn apart like thin tin, shattering along with the bodies inside.
A warrior roared and launched a charge, swinging his chainsword straight down, but it only sparked against the daemon's scale-covered limb before the blade was easily caught. Man and sword were crushed together into a twisted mixture of metal and flesh.
In just a few breaths, several more loyal warriors fell into pools of blood; their sacrifices failing to even slow the Greater Daemon's advance.
The surviving Black Templars were forced to retreat step by step, utilizing the corridor's structure to put up a desperate resistance.
The roar of bolters, the howl of chainswords, and the furious shouts of the warriors intertwined, yet they could not drown out the soul-freezing shrieks and blasphemous whispers emitted by the bird-headed monster.
The air was filled with the smell of blood, ozone, and the sickly sweet, decaying stench unique to Warp energy.
The defense line was collapsing.
Once this Greater Daemon broke through into the broader internal areas of the ship, the consequences would be unimaginable.
Just as the surviving Black Templars warriors were about to be driven to the brink of despair, and the Greater Daemon's blasphemous claws were about to tear through the last line of defense—
Heavy, swift footsteps echoed from the end of the corridor, like the beating of war drums.
A pitch-black figure, like lightning tearing through the shadows, abruptly burst into the battlefield.
It was exactly Sigismund, the High Marshal of the Black Templars, arriving at the battlefield at the critical moment.