The massive spherical breach tore through a large area, including the outer walls and part of the mansion's main structure, exposing much of the interior and underground sections while engulfing the cultist guards on this side.
Although a breach had been opened, the cost was the entire town being thrown into chaos. After realizing what had happened, the shrill alarm from the sirens echoed throughout the town. A large number of cultists were converging on the mansion, while countless demons, drawn by psychic energy, had already swarmed in.
The decapitation team had little time left, and even if they succeeded in their mission, the chances of escaping were slim to none.
However, it was clear that the five survivors didn't care much about that. The group quickly moved around the edge of the breach into the mansion's interior.
Zhang Ge found a broken wall to use as cover and raised his laser gun to intercept the first wave of reinforcements—cultists who had been part of the external patrol.
The swarming heretics were being eliminated at the same rate as the trigger was pulled, but their numbers were so vast that even as dozens fell, more quickly filled the gaps.
For now, Zhang Ge could only barely suppress them on the other side of the breach. But as the enemy numbers grew, the counterfire intensified. Bullets whizzed past his ears and struck the cover, the sounds incessant. Even though he kept changing positions, the situation continued to deteriorate.
As he emptied another magazine and prepared to reload, a bullet from an autogun finally grazed his cheek, drawing blood. A few centimeters to the side, and the bullet would have pierced his skull.
Seeing this, Zhang Ge shouted, "I can't hold out much longer. If I get seriously injured before you're done, make sure to finish me off before you leave."
This was insurance. If he didn't die and was captured by the Slaanesh cultists, the outcome was unimaginable. The Qing Dynasty had developed the ten great tortures just to stimulate human senses. One could only imagine what the even more depraved Slaanesh cultists would do—certainly not something as innocent as a blooming lotus.
The commissar's voice, slightly breathless from exertion, soon came from inside. Under the increasing influence of the Chaos god's domain, emotion was overpowering reason, and his words were unusually verbose: "Generally, officials build shelters underground in their mansions, and the altar should also be underground. We need to try to block him from below. If that doesn't work, we'll clear the upper levels. This will take some time!... Sister Amelie, go help him!"
The mansion's interior was complex, with numerous rooms. There was no time to clear each one, but advancing recklessly in such terrain meant enemies could emerge from any corner. Guns were manageable, but who knew if the crazed cultists had strapped themselves with melta bombs?
So they decided to head directly underground, betting that the mayor wouldn't have built the shelter and the initial sacrificial site above ground. They would block him from below.
With enemies all around, trying to enter through the breach outside using ropes was impractical—it would be little different from offering themselves as live targets to the cultists. Therefore, they had to create a hole in the floor.
But the strength of the building's plasteel was incomparable to the soil outside. Even with melta guns and bombs, it would take some time.
As the commissar's voice faded, a white figure quickly darted out from the building, passing by Zhang Ge at incredible speed, leaving a gust of wind in her wake.
Moving at speeds far beyond human limits to dodge bullets, Sister Amelie's two-handed sword followed the motion of her arm, cutting elegant arcs through the air with a dexterity that belied its appearance.
By positioning the blade in the path of the laser beams based on the enemy's gun orientation and trigger speed, she deflected what would have been fatal shots. The explosive interference from the deflected lasers disrupted other beams and bullets. Her swordplay was so precise and rhythmic, it was as if she were guiding the enemy's attacks, each parry perfectly timed.
The cultists, unable to organize concentrated fire in time, were overwhelmed as she charged into their ranks. In close combat, their arm movements couldn't keep up with her speed. The weak autogun bullets, even when they occasionally hit, only penetrated her muscles slightly, far from causing fatal wounds.
As limbs flew, the pressure on Zhang Ge's side lessened considerably.
Time ticked by, and projectiles continued to fly past, but none posed a further threat to Zhang Ge... While missing at a few hundred meters was normal, surely not all of them could be this inaccurate?
Zhang Ge, experiencing the cultists' marksmanship firsthand, felt like a connoisseur of incompetence.
Finally, as the blood from his earlier wound began to seep into his mouth, the first wave of demons came into view, and the commissar's voice rang out again: "Sergeant Zhang Ge, call Sister Amelie back!"
Shaking his head, Zhang Ge, thoroughly disappointed in the cultists, fired a few shots into the air as a signal—though they hadn't agreed on it beforehand, Sister Amelie wasn't foolish enough to think he was just shooting for fun at a time like this.
Sure enough, after a short while, the white figure rushed back. But when the sister reached him, Zhang Ge noticed something was wrong.
One of her arms seemed to have been completely melted off by something. The wound was clean, but there was no bleeding, as the charred flesh at the stump had sealed the blood vessels.
"Painkillers," Sister Amelie said calmly as she planted her sword in the ground.
While pain was part of serving the God-Emperor, it objectively impaired physical function. She understood that the sin of potentially failing to complete the mission due to impaired performance outweighed the pain.
As Zhang Ge pulled a painkiller from the emergency medical kit and injected it into her, Sister Amelie continued, "They dragged in a laser cannon, using the crowd to obscure their aim, trying to vaporize me along with a dozen heretics. They didn't succeed, but I didn't completely dodge it either. We can't hold this position—heavy weapons will be here soon."
"The mission inside is done. We don't need to hold any longer."
Why does it feel like everyone's talking so much?
Zhang Ge silentlyed, though he wasn't particularly stressed.
He didn't realize that speaking more in such situations was normal. On one hand, they needed to exchange information; on the other, the corruption of Chaos gods was often subtle and insidious. No one wanted their comrades to suddenly go mad and fall to corruption.
Therefore, without affecting combat, speaking in logical, extended sentences or sharing memories helped them and their allies determine whether and to what extent they had been corrupted.
The two didn't waste much time. After the injection, they quickly entered the building's interior, where a hole just large enough for an Ogryn to jump through awaited them. The others were already on alert below.