Even though we didn't reach 1500 Powerstones, I decided to post the chapter anyway since I was happy that we reached Rank 16. I hope you continue to support like this.
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Zeke cleared his throat, remembering the business at hand. He cupped his hands and shouted into the maintenance tunnel again.
"Tech-Priest? You good? Hey—"
His voice echoed down the darkened shaft. No response.
Zeke's smile vanished. The surrounding Auxilia sensed the shift instantly; they tossed aside their shaved ice, leveled their lasguns, and snapped the safety catches off.
"Report!" the squad leader barked into his vox-bead, alerting command to the anomaly.
"ALERT. GELLER FIELD FAILURE. WARNING. GELLER SHIELD FAILURE."
Red klaxons began to blare, bathing the steam-filled cabin in a bloody strobe. But beneath the mechanical scream of the alarm, there was another sound—a wet, playful, chittering laughter.
The iron walls of the cabin seemed to sweat. Then, they tore open.
Countless small, green figures burst through the bulkheads, flowing out like pus from a ruptured wound.
Taking advantage of the Geller Field's collapse, a swarm of Nurglings had boarded the ship. They scrambled over each other in a tide of filth, pouncing on the nearest Auxilia soldiers with rusted knives and biting teeth.
Zeke reacted first. He had seen the red dots swarm his minimap seconds before the breach.
Clad in the Armor of Fate, he crashed into the Nurgling swarm like a runaway truck. Bodies flew. His Manyullyn Chainsword roared, tearing through the daemons before they could overwhelm the stunned soldiers.
Nurglings: Small Nurgle daemons. Agile, mischievous, but individually weak.
To Zeke, they were nothing more than XP fodder.
However, their sheer numbers were overwhelming. They were drowning the Auxilia in a sea of rot.
The soldiers raised their guns, desperate to defend themselves, but the Snow Golems reacted faster.
In Minecraft, a Snow Golem can spot a hostile mob from 16 blocks away. This vision range ranks among the top of all entities.
Identifying the leaping daemons, the golems unleashed a volley. Snowballs flew with machine-gun precision, slamming into the Nurglings.
Thwack! Thwack!
The projectiles didn't do much damage, but they dealt significant Knockback. The force of the impacts sent the Nurglings flying backward three blocks, knocking them off the struggling soldiers.
Enraged, the Nurglings turned their attention to the snowmen, drawing fire away from the humans. Given room to breathe, the Auxilia formed a firing line and began their counterattack.
Behind them, the Nether Portal shimmered. Inquisitor Greyfax stepped through, flanked by Battle Sisters and Tech-Priests, their bolters singing a hymn of retribution.
Together, the combined forces purged the scattered daemon mites.
The immediate threat was gone, but before the Auxilia could catch their breath, the true horror of the Warp manifested.
A soldier dropped his gun, his eyes glazing over as he giggled at invisible jokes. Another screamed in horror as the skin on his arm bubbled, revealing red, swollen rot beneath.
Without the protection of the Geller Field, the raw energies of the Empyrean were sweeping through the deck.
Zeke, protected by his system, felt nothing. He grabbed a bucket of Milk and forced it down the throat of the rotting soldier.
The rot vanished.
But a moment later, the debuff returned. Without the Field, the corruption was constant.
Milk isn't enough. I need the hard stuff.
Zeke reached into his inventory and pulled out a [Brew of Sanity].
He poured the shimmering liquid down the throat of the screaming soldier. A translucent shield, like a soap bubble, lit up around the man's body. Zeke followed it with another dose of milk.
This time, the corruption did not return.
10 minutes of Warp Ward. That's all the time we have to fix the Geller Field.
"Move!"
Zeke rallied the Auxilia and pushed toward the generator room.
Cutting through obstacles, they reached the end of the corridor. Inside the maintenance tunnel, they found the missing Tech-Priest. He was slumped over the console, dead, his body fused to the machine.
"Ferric Blight," Inquisitor Greyfax hissed, aiming her condenser stake at the machinery.
The metal was crawling. Ferric Blight—tiny, microscopic Nurgle daemons that attached to metal instruments, breeding on them and corroding them into dust. This was what had caused the overheating and the field failure.
Zeke didn't hesitate. He pulled three Potions of Harming from his belt and smashed them onto the rusted gears.
Crash!
The purple mist sizzled against the metal. Since the tiny daemons had very low health, the potion wiped them out in patches, cleansing the machine spirit.
"Now!" Zeke shouted.
The reinforcement Tech-Priests rushed forward, chanting binary prayers as they began desperate repairs on the Geller Field generator.
Pfft... Pfft... Squelch.
A foul stench, heavy enough to taste, wafted from the far end of the corridor. The floor plates trembled.
Zeke's face turned serious. Something is coming. Something BIG.
Amidst a chorus of gurgling laughter, a swarm of Nurglings emerged, carrying a massive Palanquin of Nurgle.
Sitting atop the throne of filth was a bloated horror—a Plaguebearer Herald. Its abdomen was split by a massive, toothy maw, and its body was a landscape of weeping pustules.
With the ship unprotected, a high-ranking officer of the Plague God had smuggled himself aboard.
"Cluck, cluck, cluck... How wonderful." The bloated daemon dripped corrosive saliva, letting out garbled cries of joy. Its massive stomach-mouth trembled with laughter.
Zeke's hand went to his belt.
He touched the Medusae Head he had obtained from the Dark Eldar traders. One gaze, and it would petrify anything in front of it—an unstoppable, mechanic-based kill. But it was a one-time-use item.
Not yet, Zeke decided. Save the nuke for the boss fight.
"I didn't expect to be fighting side by side with an Inquisitor," Zeke said, splashing splash potions of Strength and Regeneration on himself and Greyfax.
"Those who share the same goal should stand together." Greyfax raised her bolter. Guilliman's rescue had deeply shaken her worldview. She had made peace with Saint Celestine; she could make peace with this strange builder.
As long as she walked the path of the Emperor, her old dogmas were just shackles.
Zeke raised his sword to charge, but a collective gasp from the Auxilia behind him made him stop.
He looked back.
The Snow Golems were changing.
Their snow bodies were rapidly expanding, growing taller and broader. Their stick arms thickened into tree trunks. Their pumpkin heads transformed into rugged, icy visages.
[System Alert: Mod - Mutant Creatures Unlocked]
In Minecraft, creatures usually needed Chemical X to mutate. Here, the raw, twisting power of the Warp acted as the catalyst.
The Mutant Snow Golems roared.
They were no longer throwing harmless snowballs. The three hulking constructs raised their massive arms and hurled gigantic blocks of compressed ice at the daemon.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The ice blocks hit with the force of artillery shells. The barrage smashed into the Palanquin, dealing massive damage and applying a severe Frost slowdown effect.
"Daemon! In the name of the Emperor, be purged!"
Inquisitor Greyfax seized the opening. As the bloated daemon reeled, dizzy from the icy bombardment, she leaped, unleashing a storm of holy bolter fire.
Zeke flanked the beast. His Manyullyn Chainsword roared, slicing open the daemon's massive belly-maw.
With a final, wet gurgle, the Herald of Nurgle collapsed, banished back to the Garden.
But before the body could dissolve, Zeke lunged forward.
He pulled out the Chest Opener.
There was no time to be picky. Zeke clicked frantically on the corpse's inventory, dragging every organ he could grab into his backpack.
Squish. Slurp.
He held up a chunk of oddly shaped meat, glistening with viscous green juice.
[JEI Info: Ingredient for Nurgle Stew]
Zeke paused. Nurgle Stew?
He recalled his first days in this universe, eating raw Rotten Flesh to survive. Would anyone really eat this stuff?
He checked the recipe. Nurgle Stew was incredibly complex, requiring Rotten Flesh, Daemon Organs, and various other vile ingredients.
But in Zeke's experience, the harder the food was to craft, the better the buff it gave.
Maybe... I'll give it a taste test later.
Behind them, the Tech-Priests finished the rites of repair. The Geller Field hummed back to life, pushing the Warp back into the void. The red alarms ceased. Silence returned to the ship.
Zeke leaned against the wall, watching the Mutant Snow Golems lumbering around the deck.
He remembered the mod details. Mutated creatures dropped excellent loot—like the Endersoul Hand, which allowed for telekinesis.
"Well," Zeke said, looking at the hulking ice monsters. "They're too big for the corridors now."
He led them to the ship's outer deck and fenced them in.
Problem solved. Now I have automated defense turrets.
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Total chapter posted this week = 15 Bonus + 14 Daily Chapters