Chapter 354 The Great Adventure of the Battalion Commander and the Sergeant

The tunnel collapsed much deeper than Dantioch could have imagined.

He once thought that this was just a shallow tunnel dug by the Hrud in the soil and rocks on the planet's surface for use in war, but soon he realized that even the time that this place was disturbed was affecting his distance. It was judged that he and Zoran had fallen for too long.

The glowing green stone walls were constantly flipping up and down in his field of vision, rising up from both sides of him. A blurry mural and a metal frame driven into the cracks of the stone were at the edge of the reach of his hands.

Dantioch seized every moment, trying to discern the lines on the stone wall. This attempt was unsuccessful, and he could only vaguely make out a group of smaller Hrud-like creatures worshiping around a larger creature, or some other vague image of Hrud-like life.

The creatures on the murals no longer resemble the Hrud people today, and even with just a brief glance, the battalion commander can tell the long time these dripping rocks have gone through. Long before the Hrud people migrated here for unknown reasons, they seemed to have had a different life, but everything has been buried in the vortex of time.

This is not the point.

The point is to survive.

Dantioch drew out the knife he carried with him, and when he swept past him at the protrusion of the non-vertical stone wall, he turned around and plunged the dagger into the rock wall. The single-blade dagger was too sharp, and a harsh scratching sound and a tremor from the end of his arm helped Dantioch slightly slow down his rapid fall.

He aimed at a gap in the rock wall and threw his other free arm over. The knuckles at the end of the gauntlet barely fit into the gap, and forcibly expanded it to form a fulcrum to support himself. The hand holding the dagger moved horizontally at the same time. Say goodbye and stick the blade into the crack.

"Batalion Commander!" Zoran shouted behind him, which seemed to contain some kind of warning, but the sergeant was only allowed to speak a limited number of syllables for a moment. Before Dantioch could respond, a huge wave of The force grabbed his legs and pulled him down hard, almost to the point of flipping backwards.

Dantioch cursed as he tried his best to bear the weight of two full-armoured Astartes in the air.

"Sorry!" Zolan's voice came from below. The sergeant tried hard to hold on to the battalion commander's combat boots and hung them in the abyss, swinging back and forth. "I can't hang it on the wall!"

"Ready!" Dantioch shouted, kicking Zoran towards the rock wall.

The sergeant finally found a chance to save himself as he was thrown against the wall.

"Thank you!" Zoran shouted back breathlessly.

Dantioch snorted coldly, still feeling frightened from being pulled so hard by Zoran. "Let's go down."

Rock climbing is not a standard part of Astartes training, but fortunately their physical fitness and computing skills alleviate some of this difficulty.

The closer you get to the bottom, the more obvious the distortion of time fluctuations becomes. The passage becomes unbearably hot, and the cooling cycle in the armor speeds up. An endless tremor permeates the armor and bones. The human brain responds to wrong senses. The resistance brought with it a queasy discomfort.

Time became difficult to calculate. Dantioch and Zoran repeated the mechanical rock climbing descent in the most energy-saving way, and from time to time asked each other whether the communication had been restored. The answer is always no.

Until Dantioch felt his limbs become numb and heavy, a dark light finally overflowed upward from below, accompanied by the sound of tiny digging sounds and the movement of living creatures. At the same time, the rock wall at the bottom was also treated with glass to stabilize the tremor caused by the presence of the Hrud.

Dantioch estimated the distance at the upper edge of the vitrified layer, adjusted his posture, and jumped down gently. For that thick armor, the sound of his falling to the ground was reduced to the minimum.

Seeing that Zoran was about to jump down as well, Dantioch rolled over to the side, allowing the sergeant to hit him next to him.

"Have these aliens dug through the entire planet?" Zoran cursed in a low voice. Enduring the severe pain caused by the fall, he stood up and checked the weapons and equipment he carried with him. When he turned to his waist When he was picking up his satchel, Dantioch pulled him down and reminded the sergeant to observe the shadows in the tunnel.

A small team. Dantioch gestured.

Zoran squatted silently, his movements appearing sometimes fast and sometimes slow in the distortion of time. The anomaly in the entropy field here is different from other places. Time does not simply increase in speed. There seems to be another medium that conflicts with it and is neutralizing the trend of abnormal entropy increase.

After the Hrud team left, Dantioch took Zoran to choose one of the forked roads and continued moving forward. There are no clear distinctions between doors in these paths, and a large amount of decayed debris accumulates on the walls in a free manner, fixed by fungi that sprout in a humid environment. As Dantioch walked deeper, he built a three-dimensional model of the terrain here in his mind.

"There is light here." Zoran whispered, firstly because all the nearby Hrud people had left, and secondly because he felt that the gestures could not express his mood.

"Why not?" Dantioch said softly, turning the knife in his hand. Deep in the Hrud's lair, for the two Astartes who were alone, shooting rashly was not a good option.

"Well... after all, they are not the Eighth Legion." Zoran muttered, "How did the Hrud climb to the surface?"

"By their alien abilities."

"Then what do we do?"

"Rely on our imperial ability." Dantioch said calmly.

Before he finished speaking, a single black mist suddenly emerged from the next corner.

Dantioch's expression remained unchanged. He stepped forward in an instant and cut into the entropy field surrounding the Hrud. His dagger quickly began to break and corrode, being eaten away by time, and a layer of particles floated on the surface of his ceramic steel armor. The yellow and black paint peeled off, showing the wear and tear of time.

The Hrud struggled and fought back in his iron-chained hand, but it was useless. Within a few seconds, the decay ended and the Hrud fell to the ground.

A second before it dissipated like dust, the cave dweller's slimy skin and black giant eyes were briefly observed, and then left with time and entered the end. The time field created by the alien failed at the same time.

Dantioch coughed, and in this moment, his skin wrinkled slightly, and the knocking of his two hearts was no longer so powerful. The shadow of death briefly passed over him.

If the delay lasted a little longer, or if more Hrud suddenly appeared, he might become the first Astartes to die of old age in the history of the Empire since the advent of the Space Marine program.

"Get out of the way!" Zoran shouted behind him, and Dantioch jumped away quickly. The cold invisible sickle of time passed across his back, bringing a dangerous omen under the ceramsite armor.

He rolled to the side, and a stasis grenade passed by where he had just stood, smashing into the Hrud squad that was sticking out of a gap in the wall of the tunnel. The stasis force field and the entropy field collided head-on, one after another, offsetting each other, and the dangerous balance was overturned at the touch.

Before the consequences of playing with time fell on his head, Zoran rushed over, dragged the battalion commander and ran, leaving the tunnel with a rapidly rising temperature behind.

Soon, the one-sided explosion of space-time heat swept up the expanding explosion ripples. During the acceleration, whether it was burning or explosion, it ended in a short breath of time observed by the outside world, solidified in the brilliant but stagnant firelight.

The tunnel behind Dantioch and Zoran officially began to collapse, and the shaking strata and cracked rocks chased their footsteps.

"Where did you get the stasis grenade!" Dantioch shouted.

"I have always been with a group, my cousin works in the armory--"

Zoran grabbed Dantioch's hand and pulled him into a crack in the wall, watching in fear as a group of Hruds in front of him rushed towards the explosion site in a disorderly manner.

"Why are there so many Hruds here..." Zoran panted.

"Tell me first whether you have applied for the application." Dantioch said.

"How dare I not apply!" Zoran trembled, "That's a joke, because my cousin is a sweeper servitor."

Dantioch nodded slowly, squinting his eyes to examine the place where they were. This seemed to be another hidden passage, accidentally pierced by the explosion just now, and thus reopened.

At the end of the road, a faint light was vague, attracting two warriors to explore.

This might be the reason why the number of Hruds here suddenly increased - they were guarding something.

"Let's go." Dantioch said softly, "Let's go and take a look."