With a soft click, the cervical vertebrae were reset, and the potent effects of the Regeneration Potion began repairing the damaged tissue.
Yuji touched his neck, which felt as good as new, then looked at the group of blue giants who had saved him.
The gratitude of a survivor welled up inside him, and he struggled, wanting to kneel and offer his thanks.
But when he looked up and his gaze swept over the blue giants, fear once again seized his heart.
Different colors, but they were all Astartes.
With the shadow of the Knights of Blood looming in his mind, Yuji knelt there, lips trembling. The words of gratitude stuck in his throat, leaving only boundless servility.
–
The Knights of Blood had been restrained. Zeke turned his attention to the slain Tyranid Warrior.
This was the first time Zeke had taken a proper look at a Tyranid creature.
It had two scythe-like upper limbs resembling a mantis, while its lower appendages held a weapon similar to a bio-cannon.
The Tyranid Warrior was one of the most important combat units in the Tyranid swarm. Possessing powerful combat capabilities, it also served as a command relay for the Hive Tyrant, directing the lesser Tyranid creatures.
This one had already been dealt with by the Knights of Blood, saving Zeke a fair amount of trouble.
Seeing that Yuji had calmed down, Zeke approached him.
Since Yuji was traumatized by Space Marines, it was more convenient for Zeke, who appeared to be an ordinary human, to talk to him.
"Where is this?"
It took Yuji two or three seconds to process what Zeke was asking. "Baal Prime. This is Baal Prime. Baal Secundus is paler and greener than Baal Prime. It has small, yellow-green toxic oceans. It's very easy to distinguish."
Yuji seemed much better. Pulling himself out of his earlier terror, he actually had the presence of mind to explain the differences between the two moons to Zeke.
Zeke listened while zooming in on the minimap.
A massive number of Tyranids had already made planetfall on Baal Prime. The red dots on the map looked like a bad case of eczema, popping up one after another.
They were most dense in the northeast, where countless red dots surrounded a fortress-like structure.
It seemed that was the defensive fortification on Baal Prime.
"Do you know the nearest gathering place for personnel?" Zeke confirmed with Yuji.
Hearing this, Yuji's body trembled, and he looked at the group of bound Knights of Blood on the ground.
"I don't want to go back." Yuji clutched his head, his face full of pain.
"If you don't go back, sooner or later you'll be eaten by these disgusting bugs."
Yuji shook his head. Torn between the two choices, he became increasingly agitated.
A sneer came from the side. Zeke looked over to see Yuji's grandmother staring at Yuji with disdain.
Having just survived the hands of a Knight of Blood, this old woman remained stoic.
Her face was deeply wrinkled, like the pit of a fruit. In the Warhammer universe, seeing someone live to such an old age was a rare sight.
"If it is acceptable, this old woman will lead you there."
"But..." Yuji hesitated.
"Fate has already revealed everything, my cowardly grandson. There is no need to fear." The grandmother pulled a set of items from the sash at her waist.
This old lady is pretty fashionable, Zeke thought as he looked closer. It was a deck of Tarot cards.
In the Warhammer world, Tarot cards were considered instruments of the Emperor, used for divination by people on many planets.
"Come, stranger. Draw one. It will bring you good luck, just as it once saved me from danger."
The grandmother held out the deck, inviting Zeke to draw a card.
Zeke smiled and accepted, reaching out to draw one from the middle.
There were various ways to play Tarot; some required drawing three cards, others four. The old woman's method seemed to be a wild style Zeke hadn't seen before.
The Tower (Upright).
The card depicted a high tower standing tall at its base, but crumbling at the top.
The background was filled with lightning, and a person was falling from the tower's peak.
Zeke was dumbfounded. The tarot card turned out to be a Bauble.
Its function was simple and crude: it granted immunity to fall damage. It worked just by being in his inventory.
The water bucket clutch is officially obsolete.
Zeke tried to draw a few more.
"Young man, only the first one is the most accurate," the old woman warned.
Sure enough, aside from the first card, The Tower, the other Tarot cards did not become Baubles.
After this small interlude, Zeke gave Yuji a moment to rest, and then the grandmother led them toward the defensive fortification.
En route, the Knights of Blood began to wake up one after another, freed from the Red Thirst, their eyes were much clearer, and they had regained their basic sanity.
Escorted by the Ultramarines, they occasionally spoke in low voices, the topic invariably circling back to that miraculous liquid.
"What exactly was that stuff?" one Knight of Blood couldn't help but ask, savoring the memory of the sweet liquid that had dispelled his craving.
"Milk," Zeke answered without turning his head.
"...Milk?" The Knights of Blood looked at each other, swallowed hard, and tears of disappointment flowed from the corners of their mouths.
One Knight licked his cracked lips. "If we had this stuff earlier, perhaps our Chapter wouldn't have fallen to the point where even dogs despise us."
The Knights of Blood Chapter had a terrible reputation among other Blood Angels successors due to their indulgence in blood-drinking.
Heh. Zeke reserved his judgment.
The Red Thirst was indeed a genetic curse, but how one treated this curse was a personal choice.
So many Blood Angels successor chapters fought a bitter and desperate struggle against this craving. Even in their agony, they never crossed that bottom line.
The fall of the Knights of Blood was less about the curse being too strong, and more about a collapse of will.
With the minimap, Zeke managed to avoid large swarms of Tyranids.
It took a bit more time and involved quite a few detours, but they avoided a lot of trouble.
After cresting a hill, Zeke's destination appeared in his field of vision.
A magnificent mountain range with exposed dark red rock.
Situated on a relatively gentle slope halfway up the mountain, backed by a steep cliff face, sat an ancient castle.
The castle walls were built from mountain rock, and the winged reliefs of the Blood Angels were faintly visible.
At this moment, the ancient castle was under a terrifying attack.
A tide of Tyranids was swarming up from the foot of the mountain.
They were densely packed, covering every inch of the foothills like a sea of blood that had burst a dam, relentlessly crashing against the castle.
Relying on the walls and pre-set artillery positions, the defenders stubbornly held back the climbing insect swarm with bolters and fire. Their fighting style remained wild.
But what drew the eye even more was another defensive force.
Clad in power armor as black as night, painted with striking red saltires, teardrops, and symbols of the Angels of Death.
They leaped down from the city walls, jumping directly into the densest parts of the swarm.
The Death Company. The most terrifying and tragic warriors of the Blood Angels, controlled by the Black Rage.
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