Within the Avenging Blade.
Three cruisers, in a desperate attempt to show their sincerity to their evil master, smashed nearly a thousand boarding pods into the Avenging Blade.
fury fighters intercepted with all their might, even starhawks and Thunderhawks were used as heavy air-to-air combat aircraft, equipped with air-to-air missiles for assistance in interception.
Relying on the Thunderhawk's excellent maneuverability and flexibility, Astartes pilots could directly engage in interception dogfights.
This was the confidence brought by the thinker array, which had a processing speed equivalent to ten thousand human brains, and their demigod-like bodies.
Meanwhile, starhawks plunged into the boarding pod clusters, using all their defensive weapon turrets to sweep and fire, like a void fire hedgehog.
However, a considerable number still crashed into the interior of the Avenging Blade's battle barge.
Fortunately, Space Marine battle barges have exceptionally thick armor, and the boarding pods could only penetrate the shallow decks, ensuring that the Avenging Blade's defensive forces would not face a dilemma.
"Battle-Brothers, the Captain is wreaking havoc within the enemy vessel; the sacred mission of guarding the Avenging Blade has been entrusted to us."
A Blood Angels Lieutenant, who had taken over command of the Avenging Blade, gathered all the Battle-Brothers on the ship, raising his power sword, and delivered a pre-battle speech to them, surrounded by the gazes of cherubs.
The long-standing position of adjutant had become history with the end of the Great Heresy. The guiliman codex abolished the adjutant position; its next re-activation would only happen after the Son of Vengeance himself awakened in the future.
In these ten thousand years of darkness, each Space Marine company had only one Captain and two to three Lieutenants.
They were the Captain's reliable assistants, future successors to the Captain, and their strength stood out among a hundred Battle-Brothers.
They took over command of the company when the Captain was absent or wounded, and in daily life, they functioned more as assistants, just as the original meaning of the word Lieutenant suggests.
"Brother Lieutenant, we do not need rest, please let us fight." Roman Roland and a group of golden-armored veterans who had returned to the mother ship from the Unyielding walked to the bridge and said to the Lieutenant, whose shoulders were adorned with golden pauldrons.
"You are excellent, Brother. Techmarine!" The Lieutenant turned his head and spoke to an Astartes whose power pack was filled with mechanical arms and whose armor bore the omnissiah skull gear.
"We are ready." The Techmarine held his Mechanicum power axe, standing ready.
The Lieutenant nodded and said, "Awaken our Dreadnought Brothers."
"As you wish, Brother Lieutenant."
The Captain of the Avenging Blade had already mobilized all the Chapter Serfs.
Rows of red-clad Soldiers, wearing void helmets resembling knightly armor, stood in neat formation.
Their equipment was even better than that of the Voidsmen-at-Arms, with everyone possessing medium carapace armor.
Thanks to the Blood Angels Chapter's extensive wealth and long history, and their possession of numerous resources coveted by the Adeptus Mechanicus, their warships boast a very high level of automation.
The 12-kilometer-long Avenging Blade did not require many Sailors to operate, and its compartments and corridors were much more spacious than the crowded Unyielding.
Within it were fifteen thousand fully armed Chapter Serfs.
If necessary, the Captain could also arm and summon those Chapter Serfs who were currently working at their posts.
These fifteen thousand individuals might seem few in number for a battle barge larger and longer than the Unyielding.
After all, the 5.3-kilometer-long Unyielding alone had thirty thousand armed troops.
However, these Chapter Serfs, despite having'Serf' in their name,
were male and female warriors rigorously trained and tempered to Space Marine standards.
Many of them were even failures of gene modification, unable to become Space Marines.
By any standard, the combat effectiveness of these Serf warriors is not to be underestimated, surpassing that of ordinary mortal Soldiers.
They would not actively participate in offensive operations with Space Marines, as this might cause the Space Marines to hesitate and hinder their efficiency in killing enemies.
But when guarding the Chapter's valuable assets such as monasteries, buildings, and warships, they are always the frontline defensive force.
As the evil traitors surged forward, attempting to break through the outer corridors, the valiant Chapter Serfs coordinated closely, focusing their fire in succession to launch a counterattack.
Among them, some muscular Hanzi, who had undergone partial Astartes surgery, picked up heavy weapons from the mortal forces and sprayed invading enemies like miniature Astartes.
The Blood God's servants who poured into the ship dirtied the gold-edged red carpets in the corridors with their filthy boots.
Their crude aesthetic taste abhorred the Blood Angels' refined artistic sensibilities, and they systematically destroyed the exquisite plaster statues, lifelike Sanguinius sculptures, and graceful oil paintings that adorned the corridors, works they had meticulously painted and crafted in their daily lives.
With each swing of a weapon, an exquisite masterpiece, which even a Hive City noble would spend a fortune on and still be unable to acquire, was destroyed.
As they smashed and destroyed, they suddenly felt the deck beneath their feet tremble.
They looked, perplexed, towards the source of the vibration.
A massive, ancient, battle-worn giant mech, whose adamantium sarcophagus was engraved with 'Taronos', charged forward with exceptionally heavy thudding footsteps.
"This…is! My! Masterpiece! You damned scum, I will use your blood to atone for what you've done to my gift to my Father!"
This Blood Angel's Fury Dreadnought charged forward, its massive iron feet taking one step for every five human steps.
Its right arm was a heavy frag cannon fed by an ammunition belt, and its left arm was a magnetic iron claw with a twin-linked fury fighter attached below.
The Dreadnought launched a fierce charge that made the very ground tremble.
This crimson iron behemoth, nearly 4 meters tall and 3.5 meters wide, more terrifying than three Khorne Astartes standing in a row, slammed into them like a crashing meteorite.
All the weapons of the invaders before it, even the boltguns of the Astartes, could only scratch off the crimson paint from its indestructible steel armor.
The Dreadnought's entire arsenal was firing, bringing unforgivable retribution upon the enemies who had destroyed the collections he had meticulously carved over thousands of years.
Its rage was no less than the Fury brought by a mischievous child during the New Year who, upon visiting one's home, overturned a large display cabinet filled with expensive figurines.
A single shot from the large-caliber frag cannon could blast a two-meter-deep blood path through the enemy tide.
Any enemy directly hit by this massive cannon shell, whether mortal or Astartes, was indiscriminately blown into a bloody, unrecognizable pulp of tissue and organs.
The twin-linked heavy fury fighter poured out heavy bolter shells, each capable of piercing through three mortals before exploding within the fourth.
Khorne Astartes surged to the front, raising their chainaxes at the Dreadnought charging head-on.
Buzz!!—
The axe teeth scraped, leaving only a tooth mark on the steel armor. And such a tooth mark, on this battle-hardened old Dreadnought, was shallower than the average depth of its other grooves.
The Dreadnought grabbed with its left arm's iron hand, its four claws merging together to form a rotating drill.
The sharp claws, empowered by brutal mechanical force, instantly pierced through two Khorne Astartes, skewering them into bloody kebabs.
The Dreadnought flung the corpses aside, smashing a nearby mortal suicide bomber against the bulkhead with the Astartes' bodies.
A Khorne Champion, adorned with large brass ornaments and with skull-tipped spears bristling from his power pack, charged out, wielding a power axe like a martial general in Beijing opera.
This individual was the leader of the Murder Class cruiser.
The two fierce weapons he wielded, imbued with a disintegrating field, were the only energy weapons capable of threatening the Dreadnought.
And as Khorne Champions, these paragons among the traitor Astartes were living nightmares.
Each of them had killed at least eighty-eight Imperial Saints.
These Saints in the Imperium were a rank higher than Saints, often surrounded by hundreds or thousands of skilled Crusader warriors as bodyguards, like stars orbiting the moon.
Their strength made them formidable opponents even for most of the Blood Angels of the Second Company.
But what this Khorne Champion did not know was that the Dreadnought he faced was no ordinary foe.
The individual encased within the adamantium sarcophagus was none other than the renowned ancient warrior Taronos.
An ancient warrior of The Ninth Legion who had followed the Gene-father Sanguinius himself since the time of the Primarchs, participating in the Emperor's Great Crusade.