Shipping goods from the game to the World of Warhammer

Chapter 81 The Lost Sanctuary

After the golden patterns formed a symbol that remained stable on the wall for a few seconds, the entire wall began to become translucent.

A certain energy field forms a projection medium inside the wall, turning the wall itself into a huge projection.

The moment the screen lit up, Rhodes instinctively took a step back.

The projection was blurry, like a holographic record that had been preserved for too long and whose medium had aged severely.

The image was filled with interfering fluctuations, the colors were severely distorted, and most of the image became blurry.

Even so, the outline of the creature in the projection was still unique. It was very large, and judging from the proportions shown in the projection alone, its height while seated exceeded the ceiling of the secret room.

Its body shape does not belong to any race in Rhodes's knowledge. It is neither humanoid nor insectoid, but rather more like a fusion of mammals and reptiles, with some structural features that are completely unclassifiable.

Then the projection spoke.

The sound came from inside the wall. The language was neither High Gothic, the common language of the Empire, nor Low Gothic, and it did not match any of the language systems that Rhodes had seen in the language database in his memories of fusion.

Strangely, once those unfamiliar syllables entered his ears, their meanings automatically took shape in his mind, without needing translation or decoding, as if those words were originally constructed from concepts he could understand.

"If you can hear this recording, it means the facility has recognized your presence."

The enormous figure in the projection moved slightly, its movements slow and heavy, as if its body could no longer bear the burden.

It extends a hand, with large, stiff knuckles at the fingertips, the surface of which is covered with a layer of dull, scaly tissue.

"I don't know who you are, nor can I foresee which era you come from. I only know that the torrent of psionic energy will one day guide a certain being here, just as it guided my people to this star system."

The screen jittered, several severe distortion lines swept across the bottom of the screen, and the audio also broke off slightly before switching to a different topic.

"The war began before we even left our homeland."

Its voice was devoid of any emotional fluctuation, but Rhodes could sense that the calmness wasn't because the other party was truly at peace, but because the part of him capable of generating emotions had been completely exhausted.

"My kin are scattered across the vast expanse of space. Some fell before me, while others may still be struggling to survive somewhere I don't know. I was swept here by the tide. No fleet, no allies, no fellow human beings. My bodily functions are rapidly declining, and my regeneration system can no longer sustain me."

It raised its head.

Its eyes were not visible in the projection, but Rhodes could feel its gaze piercing through time, across countless eras, and landing on him.

"This facility is my last refuge, and it will also be my grave."

The screen flickered a few more times, this time with an even longer pause.

When the image returned to normal, its body was noticeably lower than before, as if its entire body was sinking. But the sound continued.

"The subspace—you've probably felt it too, it's changing."

Rhodes's breath hitched.

"Once upon a time, that realm was peaceful, controllable, and could even be shaped at will. But now, I can feel its pulse becoming disordered and violent, and something that should not have taken shape is gathering in that chaos."

Its voice lowered.

"We once had the power to stop all of this. But now, I don't. My people are gone too."

The enormous figure on the projected screen remained silent for a long time.

It grew so long that Rod thought the record was over.

Then it spoke again, and this time there was something in its voice that took Rod two seconds to recognize.

It is an expectation.

It's not an expectation for myself, but an expectation for someone who hasn't yet appeared, someone who will stand here someday in the future and hear these words.

"Psionic guidance tells me that after me, someone else will come here. Not one of my kind, but something else entirely. I can't see its appearance or sense its essence, but the channels of psionic energy converge on it."

"So I sealed away the last things I could keep deep inside the core of this facility."

The projection began to decay rapidly after that sentence, the noise on the screen became denser and the colors darker, and the huge figure was gradually swallowed up by distortion and snow.

The last sentence was almost squeezed out from a sea of ​​white noise.

May you take this universe with you and travel further than we have.

The projector went out.

The secret room fell back into a dim state, with only the golden patterns providing illumination.

Rhodes stood there, his back still against the wall, feeling the subtle, almost imperceptible vibrations inside the wall.

He already knew what the other person was.

It's not a space undead. It's not an Eldar. And it can't possibly be human.

There is only one race that can utter the term "peaceful warp".

The participants in the War of Heaven are the ancient saints of the Milky Way.

Just as Rod was pondering the meaning of those words, the patterns on the floor beneath his feet lit up again.

The golden veins converged toward the center of the wall, growing denser and brighter with each passing moment.

Then the wall cracked open, revealing the passage behind it.

Rod pulled back from the wall, straightened up, took a deep breath, and stepped inside.

The passage wasn't long; after walking less than thirty meters, Rod saw the entire view ahead.

At the end of the passage was not a room, but an absurdly spacious underground space. The dome was extremely high, estimated to be at least fifty or sixty meters high, and the entire space was circular, with a diameter of over two hundred meters, as if a palace had been forcibly carved out of the earth's crust.

In the very center of this underground space stood a hemispherical pedestal, its surface covered with the same deep gold material as the walls. Above the pedestal floated a ball of light, within which something could be vaguely seen rotating, but it was too far away for Rhode to make it out.

Rhodes's gaze passed over the pedestal and noticed something else.

Three arched doorway structures are evenly distributed on the ground between the passageway and the platform, with each doorway approximately fifty meters apart.

The surface of the door frame was covered with dense golden symbols, some of which seemed familiar to Rod; the text that appeared on the wall during the projection recording was in the same style.

All three door frames were lit up at the moment, and the space inside the door frames was sealed by a layer of pale golden light curtain, making it impossible to see what was happening on the other side.

As soon as Rhodes took a step forward, a message was flooded into his mind with psychic energy.

Three challenges, three requirements: physical strength, the use of psychic energy, and cooperation and adaptability. Passing them will allow you to reach the core pedestal and retrieve the sealed seed.

"The power of the body—"

Rod looked down at his hands, feeling somewhat helpless.

Although he wasn't exactly weak, a traveling merchant and a super soldier were two completely different things.

As for tests of physical strength, Rod felt that those green-skinned creatures would be more suitable.

But Rod didn't panic because he had the system.

Moreover, the message that was just implanted into my consciousness did not stipulate that "only the person entering can participate in the trial."

Rhodes retreated to the entrance of the passage, sat down against the wall, closed his eyes, and brought up the system panel in his consciousness space.

"Since the first hurdle is the physical body, it's natural that there will be alien insects involved."

Rhodes summoned the jumping insects and sent them through the first light barrier.

The moment the springtail's visual signal returned, Rod almost stood up from the ground.

Behind the light screen is a passageway about 100 meters long, just wide enough for four or five people to walk side by side.

The walls on both sides of the passageway are covered with dense round holes, each about the size of a fist.

As soon as the springtail stepped into the tunnel, fist-sized bullets shot out from the round holes on both sides of the wall. The first springtail was hit directly in the body by a bullet, its carapace shattered on the spot, and the whole springtail was sent flying, crashing into the wall and turning into a pile of mud.

The second springer reacted a fraction of a second faster, dodging the first volley of projectiles. But then the ground began to shake, and the dark tectonic plates suddenly sank and bounced up, throwing the springer into the air. At that moment, the second volley of projectiles was already being fired from the higher hole.

The leaping insect, finding no foothold in mid-air, was shattered into pieces.

The signals from the two springtails disappeared from Rhodes' consciousness simultaneously.

Rhodes leaned against the wall and took a deep breath.

It's a purely physical attack, without any psionic element. The test is whether the person entering can withstand this level of firepower and force their way through this hundred-meter-long tunnel.

If you can't hold on, just increase the quantity!

Dozens of cockroaches appeared out of thin air in the passageway. Unlike the agile and nimble springtails, cockroaches were much larger, with thick carapaces covering their entire backs and heads. Their sturdy limbs supported them on the ground, and their low center of gravity made them look like living armored vehicles.

Rhodes exchanged for some more Zerglings.

First, let the cockroaches take the lead and withstand the firepower, then let the springtails follow behind, rushing through the tunnel at top speed.

After the order was given, the cockroaches lined up in two columns and were the first to pass through the light curtain.

The sound of projectiles raining down came from behind the light screen. The high-speed projectiles hit the cockroaches' carapaces, splashing up large amounts of debris and bodily fluids, but these guys' armor was far thicker than that of springtails.

After the first salvo, most of the cockroaches, though now bearing seven or eight craters on their shells, were still steadily advancing.

The floor launcher activated, and the dark floorboards suddenly sprang up, attempting to flip the cockroach into the air. However, the cockroach's six segments clung tightly to the ground, and its low center of gravity greatly reduced the launcher's effectiveness, at most causing its body to sway slightly.

Taking advantage of a lull in the volley of bullets, Rhodes immediately ordered the springtails to dart through the gaps on either side of the cockroach's body and sprint at full speed.

The speed advantage of the leaping insects was fully demonstrated at this moment. They darted out almost close to the ground, their figures quickly weaving through the gaps between the bullets. In less than a few thousand seconds, four leaping insects had rushed across the first half of the tunnel.

The firepower density in the latter half of the tunnel suddenly doubled, the number of bullet holes more than doubled, and the projectiles were launched at more tricky angles. They were no longer simply fired horizontally in a crisscross pattern, but also included heavy projectiles that were thrown vertically from the ceiling.

The first two cockroaches finally succumbed to the bullets in the latter half; their carapaces shattered completely after being hit by more than a dozen bullets, and thick green bodily fluids splattered onto the walls of the passageway. However, their corpses happened to block part of the bullet holes, buying the units behind them a few seconds of safety.

Rhodes's command landed precisely on the window, and the remaining springtails and cockroaches sprinted forward, rushing across the last thirty meters of the passageway in one go.

When the alien insects reached the destination, the light curtain of the first door frame also disappeared.

Rhodes pursed his lips. There would definitely be a price to pay, but as long as he didn't end up as mincemeat.

The light curtain of the second checkpoint lit up automatically as he approached.

This time, the message instilled into consciousness was clear: psionic energy. The entrant needed to use a psionic shield within a designated area to withstand psionic shockwaves surging from all directions for a certain period of time.

Rhodes's psionic talent, aside from units connected to the system, is essentially zero.

However, Protoss units are born with psionic shields.

"System, exchange for 2 Zealots and 1 Apostle."

[Zealot 2 and Apostle 1 have been redeemed. Current energy balance: 400]

Three beams of blue and white light folded and took shape within the passage. Two fanatics, each nearly three meters tall and covered in gold-blue power armor, stood silently before Rhodes, wielding dual-bladed psionic light blades. The Apostle, on the other hand, was even more slender, surrounded by a pale blue psionic energy field.

The Zealots' plasma shields flickered violently under the onslaught of the psionic shockwaves, but remained intact. The Apostles continuously stacked psionic barriers for the Zealots in the rear, and the three units coordinated perfectly, managing to withstand the entire psionic storm.

The second light curtain dissipated.

The third hurdle is collaboration and adaptability.

Behind the light curtain is a simulated battlefield environment that randomly generates various emergencies, requiring entrants to complete multiple objectives within a limited time, including escorting, clearing obstacles, repairing, and evacuating.

Rhodes used the remaining energy to acquire a squad of Marines and two medics, who, along with the surviving Zerglings and Zealots, formed a mixed-race squad.

With the Marines' firepower suppression combined with the high-speed flanking maneuvers of the Zerglings, the Zealots undertaking the frontal assault, and the medics maintaining the Marines' combat readiness, this team, which looked like both the protagonist's group and a corrupt Xel'Naga mixed army, completed all the objectives of the third mission one by one under Rhodes' unified command.

The moment the third light curtain dissipated, Rhodes stood up from the entrance of the passage, dusted himself off, and strode into the open underground space.

The gold symbols on the three door frames have all been extinguished, and the road leading to the central pedestal is now fully open.

Rhodes walked step by step toward the hemispherical pedestal. As he got closer, the ball of light floating above the pedestal became clearer and clearer.

That wasn't some abstract energy cluster.

Inside the light, there was a fist-sized sphere with a surface covered in spiral grooves, slowly rotating.

The material of the sphere is indistinguishable as either metal or organic. Its surface color constantly shifts between deep gold and dark green, and each time it changes, it emits a very faint halo.

The "seed" left behind by that departed ancient saint.

Rod reached out his hand.

Before my fingertips even touched the light, a system notification sounded in my mind.

[Psionic creation detected. Accept?]