novelraw Chapter 7: Flayed Ones
Chapter 7: Flayed Ones
They chose the passage on the left, which seemed slightly smaller and sloped downwards.
While the surrounding surfaces remained black, the strange text now took on a striking silver color, emitting a faint glow as the illumination lights swept across it.
Soshyan noticed that his breath began forming condensation on his faceplate. This was not a good sign; it indicated that there might be a problem with his oxygen circulation system. The World Engine was an environment where only Necrons could survive, devoid of oxygen and moisture.
"Contact."
Suddenly, Axel halted his footsteps up ahead, and everyone in the squad swiftly adopted a combat formation.
While Soshyan kept vigilance over the surroundings, he looked forward over Axel's shoulder. At the same time, a rustling static noise rising from the edge of his hearing was drawing closer.
"Hold fire."
Occam's voice rang out over the vox-channel.
"Nobody move."
Soshyan heeded his instructions, and the other squad members did the same. Consequently, they immediately caught sight of the thing emitting the noise.In that moment, Soshyan admitted that he was indeed astounded.
Countless swarms of mechanical insects bored out from the darkness and passed around them. They moved like liquid mercury, the glare of the illumination lights reflecting off the exoskeletons of tens of thousands of beetle-like creatures.
They rapidly flooded the surrounding passage, like a moving tide covering the walls, ceiling, and floor.
The first to come into contact with them was Axel, then Soshyan, and then the people further back.
They parted and then converged again, occupying every inch of the surrounding space. The friction of their passing was like fragmented whispers.
Judging purely by appearance, no matter what they were, they were at least not organic. Each was smaller than the thumbs of the Space Marines, yet composed entirely of metallic material.
As the tide swept through the passage, every single beetle perfectly mirrored the coordinated movements of its kin around it.
In a mere half-minute, the surging waves reduced to a stream, and the peak of the bizarre insect tide passed just like that. They turned a blind eye to the motionless Space Marines.
In the process of the rustling noise gradually weakening, the insect swarm also vanished into the darkness behind the squad.
Seeing millions of clicking, tiny metallic legs march past right in front of him, Axel finally exhaled the breath he had been holding in all along.
"What are they?"
Axel asked aloud.
When Soshyan remained silent, he turned toward Occam, who simply shook his head.
"A type of Abominable Intelligence used as maintenance workers by these Xenos. Once startled, they will launch an attack. Trust me, you don't want to know what they look like when they go berserk."
"Keep moving, and stay highly vigilant."
They headed further down, but by this time, the tunnel they were following was no longer uniform. Many sarcophagi were scattered along the walls.
About twenty minutes later, they began to descend. At this time, Soshyan noticed an anomaly in the vox-channel. The irritating crackle of static filled his ears.
Moreover, what was even more critical was that some data from his Power Armor also began to fail—they seemed to be stuck at the exact moment they arrived on the surface of the World Engine. The other squad members reported the exact same issue.
Soshyan did not expect to receive any answers; he knew there wouldn't be any.
Soon, the passage reached a dead end. Before them was an expansive hall and two passages leading far away on the other side. The markings on the walls transformed into larger, silver-embossed forms, while the ceiling arched upwards like a row of black spines.
"Is this place marked on the auspex, Occam?"
"Yes."
The veteran looked down at the auspex.
"It seems the left side here leads to an even larger hall at the rear."
"Very well. Keep a tight formation."
They swiftly transitioned into an even larger space. While there were traces of a firefight here, there were no corpses—neither of Space Marines, nor of Xenos.
In the middle of the utterly empty hall stood only a giant pedestal. Clusters of thick cables coiled around its sides like pythons, connecting it to some sort of silver-skinned statue placed on the very top.
At first glance, Soshyan felt it resembled some sort of massive, metallic spider, or an enlarged version of the microscopic organisms they had encountered earlier.
Artificial crystal clusters were mounted on its shoulders, emitting a faint glow as beams of illumination swept across them.
"Don't go near it."
Occam issued a warning. The squad members swiftly occupied positions encircling the hall, aiming their weapons at the pedestal and the statue atop it.
"It's in a dormant state."
The veteran added a sentence, as if that explained everything.
"We continue advancing."
"Enemy approaching from the rear!"
Suddenly, Ned, located at the back of the formation, issued a warning. All the Space Marines turned around simultaneously with an inconceivable degree of coordination, raising their Bolters to cover the archway they had traversed previously.
Then they heard a noise, the sound of footsteps.
It sounded very much like the noise of a Space Marine walking over, the heavy clanging of metal striking metal, except these footsteps were limping and disorganized.
As a beam of light illuminated the dark passage, a moving flicker appeared, like a patch of ghastly pale skin.
"What is that—"
Axel tried to speak, but the words swiftly caught in his throat.
At the same time, that figure limping toward the hall revealed its appearance at the edge of the archway.
It was a tall humanoid creature, but severely stooped over. It looked to be composed of metal, yet there was something slightly different.
Because it wore blood-stained human skin like a cloak. Long strips of flesh coiled around its shoulders and hung loosely behind it. Scarlet blood soaked most of its silver exoskeleton, and its grizzly, soiled trophies were still dripping blood, as was the case upon the sinister, long talons serving as its twin hands.
What was even more hair-raising was that a human face hung over its skull like a nightmare mask, and two green eyes burned from within hollow eye sockets.
However, it had not acquired its trophies entirely without a price. Looking at the severed right foot and the wounds all over its body, one came to understand just how the deceased had fought back. Perhaps it had originally been very agile, but now it was just a target.
"Fire! Exterminate it!"
The Xenos's footsteps were swiftly drowned out by the thunder of Bolters. The instant that creature dragged its feet into the hall, it was enveloped by a frenzy of fury.
With a sound like hammers striking anvils, bolts smashed into its metallic body, tearing apart that moist skin and the Living Metal beneath it.
The skull-like, terrifying creature rapidly disintegrated under such a ferocious assault. While metal flew in all directions, the circuits sparked and smoked.
It halted its intermittent advance, dropping to one knee as it entered a spasm due to its systems being damaged.
Consequently, a bolt struck the side of its skull and detonated, exposing a portion of destroyed wiring connectors.
Ultimately, it collapsed, the blood still forming a puddle around the human skin flayed from the victim.
"Die, monster."
Soshyan stepped close and fired one final shot point blank at its head, obliterating it into a shower of sparks.
"What was that?"
Lowering the gun in his hands, Soshyan stared closely at the wreckage on the ground. He recognized that shattered face; it belonged to a warrior from the 4th Company.
"A curse. Perhaps this is the very reason why these Necrons have become so maddened."
Occam walked up, took one look, and revealed a sense of weariness in his tone.
"A curse?"
"It is just something I have heard as well. It is said that among these Xenos, there is a plague-like curse that will turn them into this sort of appearance. Perhaps the master of this tomb sensed the spread of this curse, and thereby became maddened..."
"No matter what the reason is, they are Xenos, and they all must die."
Finished speaking, Soshyan suddenly noticed unusual movement manifesting on the auspex.
"A new signal?"
(End of Chapter)