130: Chapter 131 What is the password for the main gate?

The five hundred meters of flat ice offered no cover for evasion.

C-19 did not issue a tactical order to disperse.

The gene-glands behind his neck pumped overclocking hormones into his blood within a second, and a dark red shimmer emanated through the cooling vents of his black artificer armor.

Fourteen heavy infantrymen, each over two meters tall, slammed into the gates of Facility Three in an absolutely straight line.

The Golden Legion's Heavy Melta Guns opened fire.

These weapons did not fire bullets, but blinding beams of high-temperature white light.

The recruit designated Number Seven, at the very front, took a beam of light head-on.

The breastplate of his Mars-upgraded power armor turned a dazzling bright orange the moment it touched the white light, then exploded as the ceramite matrix and composite metal were instantly vaporized.

The white light pierced through his chest, opening a transparent hole the size of a bowl in his back.

Bone shards and organ fragments were scorched black by the high heat, carbonizing before any blood could even flow out.

Recruit Number Seven did not stop.

He didn't even spare a glance at the hole in his chest.

His secondary heart pumped blood frantically in the right side of his chest cavity; the overloaded state had completely cut off the return signals of pain nerves, leaving only one simple command in his brain.

Run forward, smash what's ahead.

Enduring that large hole burned through his lungs, he forced himself to charge another hundred meters.

It wasn't until a second melta beam swept through his right leg that he collapsed face-first onto the ice.

But the Electromagnetic Bolter in his hand was still roaring.

The recoil shattered his few remaining ribs, but lying on the ground, he poured the entire last half-magazine of bolt shells into the Energy Shield of the opposing defensive line.

This was the first lesson of Warhammer logic: as long as the brain remains, the body is a consumable.

Three hundred meters.

Two more recruits were hit by melta guns.

One of them had his left shoulder and arm completely evaporated, yet he continued to charge, wielding his Chainsword with one hand.

The Golden Legion guards watched these tattered monsters continue to push forward, their hands holding the melta guns beginning to shake uncontrollably.

The genetic modifications they had undergone gave them extremely high tactical proficiency; they knew to focus fire on heavy armor and how to maintain the output frequency of their energy packs.

But their tactical manuals didn't say how to deal with living dead who could still run after having their hearts burned through.

The thermal main cannons of two golden six-legged vehicles finished charging.

Two red beams, ten times thicker than those of the melta guns, swept across the ice.

The ice layer was instantly vaporized into a trench several meters deep, and a massive amount of water vapor immediately blurred the vision of the entire defensive line.

A massive, pure black figure charged out of the water vapor.

C-19 stepped through the melted ice water and jumped onto the head of the first golden vehicle.

The vehicle's point-defense machine guns began to spit tongues of fire frantically, bullets clattering against his black armor and kicking up dense sparks.

C-19 ignored the bullets.

He steadied himself on the base of the vehicle's main cannon, his hands gripping the armor plates on the outside of the energy-focusing ring.

His overloaded muscle strength and the 300% destruction bonus of the Engineering Demolition trait took effect simultaneously.

C-19 took a deep breath and yanked upward with both arms.

There was a massive crack.

Two solid hydraulic support rods, as thick as wrists, that held the main cannon were snapped off by sheer force.

Blue hydraulic oil sprayed all over his head and face.

He hugged the thermal main cannon, which weighed several tons, and using the torque from his waist, tore it directly off the vehicle's chassis.

The high-temperature plasma still charging in the barrel lost its containment field and exploded inside the breech.

C-19 jumped off the vehicle a second before the explosion.

The first vehicle was flipped by its own main cannon's sympathetic detonation, turning into a pile of burning scrap metal.

The remaining ten recruits crashed into the Golden Legion's defensive line.

This was no longer a gunfight.

This was a slaughter.

Electromagnetic Bolters fired at point-blank range, their barrels pressed directly against the enemies' chests.

The barrels of the melta guns were too long to be effective in melee combat; the guards were pinned to the ground by the recruits, their helmets and heads smashed one punch at a time by fists enhanced by mechanical servo-arms.

The second golden vehicle tried to retreat and open up some distance.

Four recruits, missing arms or half their faces, pounced on it.

They were like a pack of starving wild dogs, clinging to the vehicle's mechanical legs.

They didn't use weapons; some bit through exposed sensor cables with their teeth, while others jammed their hands into joint gaps and pulled desperately.

The vehicle spun frantically on the spot, trying to shake them off, but the recruits' fingers were already deeply embedded in the armor plates.

Three minutes later, all eight legs of the second vehicle were dismantled, the control cabin was sliced open, and the pilot inside was dragged out and chopped into three pieces.

It fell silent before the gate.

The ground was covered in charred meat and parts still emitting electrical sparks.

Due to the severity of their injuries, four recruits collapsed into the bloody water one after another once their overloaded state wore off, falling silent.

Seven people remained standing.

Including C-19, eight.

They turned to face the fifty-meter-high black metal gate.

The countdown above the gate showed: four minutes left until charging was complete.

The gate was smooth, with only thick energy conduits; no control panels or ports for electronic locks could be found.

Li Cang watched the gate from the cockpit.

This gate was nuclear-blast resistant, at least three meters thick.

Even a Plasma Cannon wouldn't leave a mark on it.

"Find the conduit nodes and cut off the energy supply?" C-19 asked over the comms.

"No time." Li Cang stared at the countdown. "The launch silo is right behind this gate. Even if we cut the outer pipes, they can still fire from the inside."

Li Cang rested his fingers on the edge of the console, his knuckles turning white from the pressure.

He had just gambled his entire fortune, losing all but eight of his troops.

He had no time to find a password, nor time to study the mechanical structure.

"C-19."

"Present."

"Fire every remaining bolt shell in your guns at the exact same point in the center of the gate." Li Cang's voice was as cold as iron.

C-19 didn't ask why.

The eight men lined up, raised their Electromagnetic Bolters, and aimed at the very center of the black gate.

Boom, boom, boom.

The deafening sound of continuous fire echoed in the underground space.

Hundreds of depleted uranium armor-piercing bolt shells, having undergone secondary acceleration, slammed into the same spot.

A deep crater was blasted into the black metal gate, the metal at the edges curling and turning red under the high heat.

But the gate was too thick; this level of destruction couldn't possibly penetrate it.

The gunfire stopped.

They were out of ammo.

"Drop the guns," Li Cang issued the second command. "Fall back fifty meters."

The eight Astartes dropped their Bolters and retreated in unison.

Li Cang glanced at the countdown.

Two and a half minutes.

"Overload, set to maximum."

The dark red light on the eight giants flared up again, more blinding than ever before.

"Ram it," Li Cang said.

This wasn't a tactic; it was a completely irrational physical collision.

Eight Astartes, each weighing over two tons, wearing heavy power armor and in a state of extreme overload, slammed their shoulders into the red-hot crater like eight solid cannonballs.

The Engineering Demolition trait calculated frantically in the underlying logic.

The 300% structural destruction power erupted the moment flesh and metal made contact.

BOOM.

A massive roar made the entire underground fault line tremble.

The red-hot indentation in the center of the gate bulged inward violently, followed by a tearing shriek.

The three-meter-thick nuclear-blast resistant gate was forced open with a crack by the flesh and blood of eight men.

Three of the Astartes collapsed on the spot with broken bones.

C-19's left shoulder armor was completely shattered, his shoulder blade piercing through his flesh.

He steadied himself and thrust his intact right hand into the crack.

The remaining four recruits followed suit.

Five hands gripped the edges of the crack and exerted force simultaneously.

Engineering Demolition was triggered again.

CRACK.

The crack was torn wider.

The fifty-meter-high metal gate groaned under the unbearable weight and then collapsed inward with a crash.

Amidst the dust of the falling gate, Li Cang saw the monster hidden beneath the ice sheet through C-19's eyepiece.

It was a plasma acceleration rail hundreds of meters long, its surface flowing with blinding blue light, with the end of the rail aimed at a natural skylight above the ice layer.

Charging countdown: thirty seconds.