Chapter 358 An Explosion

Conrad Curz was bored and tossed a black glass cube in his hand, causing the Hrud fur sealed inside the dark crystal to flip up and down. The Hrud was special. Without some extraordinary skills, their bodies would evaporate quickly and could not be preserved.

Conrad always regretted that he could not collect a few soft Hrud furs to hang in his private collection room and wardrobe.

Suddenly, he clenched the crystal and pressed the cube against the long steel table in the Iron Blood command room, making a noticeable crisp sound.

"You have been sitting in this chair for nine days, Perturabo," Conrad Curz said bluntly, "This is not a good sign. I suggest you stand up and walk around, such as going to your Iron Wyrm garden and taking a thirteenth turn."

Perturabo glanced at him and ignored him. The numbers on the dozens of data boards connected to his brain through neural circuits kept scrolling, indicating that he was thinking at high speed.

"Conrad is right, the dust is set," Sanguinius said softly, rarely supporting the blood prince's words, his eyes resting on Perturabo's frowning eyebrows, "Almost all battlefields have been determined indisputably, we won, my brother."

"There are still fleet battles." Rogal Dorn reminded, appearing in the middle of the holographic projection with his golden skull. "Some Hruds began to escape under the influence of poison gas, and we have to intercept them in space."

"Come on, Rogal Dorn," Conrad hissed, and the crystal made a harsh shattering sound on the table, "You haven't finished the planets left for you yet, and you come to accompany Perturabo to the battle meeting."

"And you, Sanguinius, have you been eating well recently?" He glanced at the archangel.

"The food tastes unsatisfactory, and once again contains ingredients that are not conducive to the metabolism of Space Marines." Sanguinius said tactfully, "It's better to give us the nectar you gave us."

Rogal Dorn turned to Conrad and looked at him deeply: "First, I arrived at the Satrada Abyss area two hours ago; second, I have the right to participate in discussions about war. Finally, Sanguinius's words are too arbitrary and need to be properly supplemented."

Sanguinius flapped his wings and ignored the seemingly stiff atmosphere. Compared with his brief foreboding, he even felt that the Lord of the Seventh Legion was even easier to talk to.

"Don't make noise." Mortarion said dully. He was the person who sat the farthest from Conrad.

Mortarion didn't understand the subtle relationship between the people in the room, and when he heard Sanguinius' hint about food, his temples throbbed slightly and hurt. This made Mortarion miss Horus Lupercal a little.

Perturabo simply raised a hand and signaled the Primarchs to be quiet. Several people immediately understood what the Iron Lord meant, and sat up straight.

"I admit that this long war has already reached the end of victory for most of us - our Primarchs, our Astartes warriors, and our auxiliary troops, most of the people in this gathering. The Hrud are retreating step by step, and the last nest has been dug up and destroyed. They are fleeing like rats who have lost their homes. There is nothing to be afraid of. The remaining work is also something that our warriors who have fought a hundred battles can do."

"As for why I still leave a planet and do nothing about it," Perturabo pondered for a moment and continued, "I don't want to conceal it. I left it because my 11th Battalion Commander Barabas Dantioch and his reconnaissance team member Zoran Anderson are still missing here."

"What is their current situation?" Rogal Dorn asked.

"The rescue team did not go deep into the Hrud's nest, nor did they meet the missing. And the communication signal has never been restored." The Iron Lord breathed steadily, his eyes as majestic as usual, just like a piece of steel that was never disturbed by external affairs.

"I think..." Sanguinius pondered and said, unsure whether he should say the next words himself.

"If this battalion commander died here, it would be a great pity." Curze said softly, staring at the black crystal in his hand. "The history of change may not flow in the direction you and I expect."

Perturabo raised his head: "The last time I considered whether to destroy the world where there were still people whose lives and deaths were unknown was in Prospero. At that time, the alien that Magnus and I encountered was called the Soul Eater Bee."

"Did you press the button?" Curze asked. Decades have passed since that day, enough time to build a new glorious nation from the ruins.

"I don't have any," Perturabo said, overlapping his hands and placing them flat on the table. "Prospero's jurisdiction is not under my control, and Magnus is the Primarch. After all, I have faith in his ability."

"But this time is different from the last time, dear Perturabo," Curze raised his head from staring at the crystal and said coldly.

"Do you really think that two Astartes can walk out of the nest of a planet with strong Hrud forces alive? Even if he is the eleventh battalion commander you favor, it will not help. Why not collect the blood containing genetic memory of the two in your flagship first..."

"Enough." Perturabo said sternly, and stopped abruptly before he finished speaking.

He shook his head slightly: "I understand what you mean, Conrad. The carrier and poison gas bomber are already on standby in the orbital ship. After all personnel have completed combat preparations, there will be no more delays..."

Suddenly, a brilliant white light burst out from the holographic star map. A tiny flicker in the universe, a barely perceptible sigh, a momentary burst of light, all originated from the core of the planet that the Primarchs were paying attention to.

"Retreat!" Perturabo immediately gave orders to the fleet that was circling the planet and preparing to carry out the extermination mission, without wasting a second.

A few seconds later, the icons in the star map changed from red dots to cold gray backgrounds with black lines crossing.

Under Perturabo's mind, the star map quickly focused on the real scene, but they still did not catch up with the rolling lava and the spreading of gray clouds in the sky, the cracking of the titanium alloy shell and the tempered polymer inner layer, and the cracking of the planet's core. Hrud's spaceships kept flying rapidly from the surface of the planet, and were ruthlessly captured by the planet and swallowed into the depths of destruction, and none escaped.

Broken time cuts things up and spits them out in a disordered way. Sometimes it is a desolate stone plain, sometimes it is a fortress full of war, and sometimes it is a cold steel loop. Each scene is fleeting. After a brief appearance, it is rolled back into the abyss of time.

Soon, the planet flickered once for the last time and then curled inward. The temperature reading suddenly dropped to a low point of minus 200 degrees after burning for a moment at thousands of degrees, and the heat was only supported by the surrounding radiation. Silence spread with the cold.

Everything rolled back and contracted in the broken lava and smoke like a tide, and then collapsed to a dark point that almost no longer existed in the turbulence of time, and the dust scattered in the space, and the ghosts in the memory.

Perturabo stood up from his chair, stared at the broken planet, took a deep breath, paused for a few seconds, and then slowly exhaled.

He turned on the sound array sequence and ordered the war blacksmiths.

"Prepare for the victory celebration. Also, compile the list of casualties and prepare for the funeral."