Warhammer Survival Guide

Chapter 28 The Price of Survival

The workers rushed forward.

Suddenly, Luo Wei felt the ground beneath his feet tremble.

It wasn't an explosion.

Rather, it is a kind of creeping motion originating from deep underground.

"Alarm." Case's cold, electronic voice rang in Rowe's earpiece. "High-energy biological activity detected underground in Sector E4. Energy level: enormous!"

Luo Wei hurriedly turned around.

In the middle of the square, the rebel corpses, corroded by acid and riddled with bullets, did not lie still as usual.

They are melting.

Flesh and blood, bones, and even the clothes on one's body.

They were all liquefying at an extremely fast speed, turning into puddles of dark green liquid.

Instead of seeping into the ground, the pus seemed to come alive, converging towards a single point.

That spot was the very place where the rebels had been electrocuted while trying to touch the airdrop crate.

"Is this... a sacrifice?"

Luo Wei's expression turned serious.

The hoarding of supplies may just be a symptom.

Their deaths were a ritual in themselves.

"Retreat! Everyone retreat!"

Lowe roared at the top of his lungs.

At the same time, he kicked a laborer in the buttocks as the laborer greedily rummaged through the rebels' pockets.

"Throw the stuff in the car and drive!"

In the blink of an eye, the ground cracked open.

A giant hand, made up of countless rotting limbs and fungi, reached out from the puddle of pus and grabbed at the harvester's tracks.

That hand and foot were as big as a truck.

It was covered with eyeballs that were still moving and a mouth that was drooling.

"Nurgle..."

Lowe recognized the thing.

Although it is only a low-level warp demon, it is invincible on the mortal battlefield where heavy firepower is lacking.

"Alfa, overload boiler!"

Lowe jumped back to the control tower, gripping the handrails tightly with both hands.

"Puff out all the steam, aim at that hand!"

"yes!"

The harvester let out a painful groan.

All the exhaust valves on the side of the vehicle are open.

A stream of superheated steam, with an eerie pale purple hue.

It erupted like a volcano.

It instantly swallowed the rotting giant hand.

This is not just water vapor.

It contains the "excessive activity" released by that subspace crystal.

The blessing of filth lies in "stagnation" and "slow cycles," allowing decay to exist in a perpetual symbiotic state.

However, this steam is an extreme catalyst.

It forcibly increased the metabolic rate of the Nurgle Beast cells by billions of times in an instant!

For the Nurgle, creatures made of decay and viruses, this uncontrolled acceleration is more deadly than strong acid.

It disrupted the symbiotic balance.

This causes every cell to exhaust all its energy in an instant, dividing wildly until it self-destructs.

"Aww!"

The giant hand was shrouded in steam.

It let out a scream that was not only from pain, but also from extreme hunger.

The maggots and fungi inside its body grew wildly under the catalysis of steam, instantly growing into a deformed behemoth.

Then, due to energy depletion, it rapidly withers and carbonizes.

This is the short circuit in biology: biological burnout.

The originally tough and moist rotting flesh, after undergoing a moment of frenzied proliferation, was completely reduced to lifeless ashes.

Those eyeballs, like fruits ripened to their limit, burst open with a crackling sound.

The giant hand loosened the tracks.

It turned into a charred, withered piece of wood.

"Go, reverse at full speed!"

The harvester roared, its tracks spinning wildly in the air.

It kicked up clouds of mud, broke free of the quagmire, and raced toward the granary.

Buck led the defense force in a fighting retreat, using concentrated firepower to block the smaller derivatives that were trying to pursue them.

The laborers also stopped fighting.

The spiritual "sense of happiness" vanished in the face of the giant hand's roar.

They carried the boxes and ran back like madmen.

Lowe stared intently at the giant hand.

It did not catch up.

It seemed to be bound within the range of that magic circle by some kind of rule.

Or perhaps it's just coming out to say hello, to let humanity know that the real war has begun.

……

It was already evening when we got back to the granary.

The rain stopped.

The sky remained a depressing purplish-red.

Take stock of casualties.

Forty-seven laborers died and more than one hundred were injured.

Most of the injuries occurred during the stampedes and chaos of the retreat.

Fortunately, the harvest was quite fruitful.

Three tons of medical supplies and five hundred high-energy batteries.

This is enough for the Seventh Grain Depot to last another month.

Rowe sat in his office with the silver briefcase he had taken from the airdrop crate in front of him.

He didn't let anyone see the box.

He first inspected the container.

No traps or bio-locks were found.

"Click".

The box was opened.

There was no gold or silver treasure inside, nor any top-secret documents.

There was only one vial of medicine and a note.

The potion was deep blue and emitted a faint, cold glow under the light.

Luo Wei picked up the note.

The handwriting above is neat and strong.

It was clearly written by Governor Alicia herself.

Just one sentence:

"This is both an antidote and a poison. It's for those who most need to be awakened."

Loewe knew what this was.

This is a high-purity mental stabilizer from the top tier of the Nest City, exclusively used by the nobles.

It can instantly clear away any illusions and pleasures caused by psionic contamination, restoring absolute sanity to a person.

The side effects are also obvious.

It will cause people to experience pain and depression several times greater than that of ordinary people in the following days.

It is the bane of happiness.

Luo Wei remained silent for a moment.

He did not inject himself.

He put the medicine back in the box and locked it.

Then it was stuffed into the hidden compartment at the very bottom of the desk.

He doesn't need this right now.

Although the trace amounts of "sweetness" from the subspace crystals are dangerous, they are also one of the driving forces that keep him thinking intensely in this hellish environment.

He needs that kind of excitement.

We still need it, at least for now.

"consultant."

The heavy blast-proof door slid open, and Father Alpha walked in.

His prosthetic limbs were stained with undried oil, and the servo skull behind him was humming softly.

"The supplies have been stored. In addition, while cleaning the harvesters, we discovered some phenomena that defy the laws of physics."

Luo Wei looked up from the pile of documents: "Speak."

"The front rollers and tracks of the harvester were contaminated with a large amount of Nurgle's bodily fluids during the battle." The priest extended a metal tentacle and projected a holographic scan image.

"According to the database, that kind of highly acidic viscous liquid is enough to corrode through a three-inch thick plastic sheet within ten minutes."

"But..." the priest paused, his tone revealing an undisguised confusion and fervor, "no."

The hologram is magnified to reveal the microstructure of the track surface.

"The metal was not corroded. Instead, at the interface where the slime met the metal, a crustacean-like cuticle grew. It was so hard that it even bounced off our sampling drill bit."

The priest's voice lowered slightly:

"It's like... this machine is 'feeding'. It absorbs the biomass of the Nurgle and uses it to evolve."

Is the machine feeding?

Luo Wei stared at the picture, his brain working at lightning speed.

Simple corrosion from scale will cause metal to rust and decay, but it will never make it harder.

The only variable was the steam that was ejected at that time.

It was high-energy steam that had been heated through subspace crystallization and contained the concepts of concentrated "vitality" and "ripening".

When this vibrant steam encounters the biomass-filled bodily fluids of the Nurgle, a violent reaction occurs on the metal surface...

It catalyzed an impossible alchemical reaction.

Crystallization provides the energy for "growth".

The Nurgle provided the raw material for "flesh and blood".

The harvester itself becomes the carrier of all of this.

This is no longer simply a matter of science.

This is a blasphemous miracle, a forbidden fusion of machinery and flesh.

If the Martian cultists saw them, Rowe and Father Alpha would be immediately turned into mech servants.

"Block the news." Lowe made a decisive move, his eyes sharpening. "Drag the harvester into the deepest isolation chamber. No one but you and me is allowed near it. Format the memories of all witnesses."

"As you wish." Father Alpha bowed deeply, his red eyes flickering uncertainly. "Is this... another revelation from Om Messiah?"

"No, this is the price of survival."

After the priest left, Lowe went to the window and looked out through the crack.

The atmosphere in the square was lively.

Workers are lining up to receive "extra meals" —

The marching rations, not yet fully decomposed, were pulled from the corpses of the rebels.

And the enormous rats that were blown up in the firefight and hadn't had time to mutate yet.

There was no mourning, no grief.

For the living, the empty bunk of their deceased companion means they can sleep with their legs outstretched tonight.

The amount of green soup they saved meant that they could live one more second tomorrow.

This enthusiasm is not celebration.

Rather, it is a kind of almost beastly, greedy possession of survival resources.

Having witnessed all of this, Lowe's nerves were on edge.

He used the power of chaos to produce food and feed these people.

Now, he has inadvertently discovered that this power can enhance machines.

He danced on the edge of the abyss, with a bottomless abyss beneath his feet.

But he had no way out.

Lovi drew the curtains, shutting out the suffocating crimson sky.

He sat back down at the table and tapped his fingers on the control panel.

"Case".

"Yes, Your Excellency."

The cold, electronic synthesized sound of the wet server rang out.

"Build a new simulation model," Lowe calmly instructed.

"What would happen if I injected high-energy steam, heated by subspace crystallization, through a conduit into the cooling system of a heavy logging gun, allowing it to directly contact the barrel?"

A series of wild, garbled characters flashed across the screen.

That's an overload that occurs when a logic circuit processes data that defies common sense.

A few seconds later, a line of red text popped up:

"The simulation results indicate that the metal structure of the gun barrel will undergo irreversible activation. The lifespan is expected to decrease by 90%, but the rate of fire can be increased by 200% before it is completely scrapped."

"Additional effect: The projectile will be enchanted the moment it leaves the barrel, carrying a small amount of subspace thermal energy, which will cause additional burning damage to organisms."

"Warning: This action is a serious violation of Article 402 of the General Scripture of Mechanics and constitutes technical heresy."

Seeing the red warning, Luo Wei's lips curled up slightly.

This is a gambler's cold smile before going all in.

"The Holy Scriptures can't save us, Case."

He said in a low voice.

It was as if it were an explanation to the deceased supervisor.

It is also a declaration of war against this crazy universe.

"But even more firepower, sure!"