The center of the battlefield instantly transformed into a death zone where mortals could hardly tread.
With the shrieking whistle of its disruptor field, the power sword traced perfect cobalt arcs through the air, every swing precisely aimed at the joints of Typhus's armor.
Sicarius moved like lightning, darting like a blue phantom dancing around a giant of decay, using his speed advantage to play with his ponderous opponent.
"Too slow, heretic!"
Sicarius roared as he leaned aside to dodge the soul-reaping scythe that swept past with a foul wind of blood and gore. Backhanding his blade, he thrust it straight beneath Typhus's ribs. Pressing the superheated plasma pistol against the wound, he fired two consecutive shots.
Yet Typhus merely let out a murky, muffled laugh. The intense plasma heat—capable of melting ceramite—vanished into his pus-dripping, rotted flesh like stone dropped into the sea, doing little more than detonating a few clouds of foul green mist.
Around the two duelists, what ought to have been a harrowing, meat-grinder brawl took on an utterly bizarre atmosphere.
Countless Helldivers players, dressed in carapace armor and wielding entrenching shovels and lasguns, were sprinting toward the scene like mad dogs just to get closer to the epicenter of the fight.
While this tactic of concentrating forces to break through a single point had genuinely shaken the Plague Legion's momentum, it was merely a secondary reason.
The primary reason was:
"Holy crap! A BOSS fight! A live Cato Sicarius is 1v1ing Typhus!"
"Crisps and chips and folding chairs in the front row! You with the heavy stubber, stop blocking the camera!"
"Bros, I'm already recording! This is the exclusive view of the server-first-kill storyline! This is going straight to Youtube—no, for the Emperor! Charge!"
This crowd of players cared nothing for whether the battle's shockwaves would kill them. Their eyes were locked solely on that epic duel.
Typhus grew thoroughly annoyed by these suicidal "mortals," yet he had no choice but to keep his full attention pinned on the troublesome Ultramarine before him.
"Not bad swordplay, little blue man."
Typhus's voice sounded like bubbles popping under a swamp. He swung his scythe violently, but this time it was no simple physical attack.
Accompanying his movement, the Destroyer Hive that had been hovering around him detonated. Billions of plague-flies carrying virulent toxins formed a black torrent, sweeping toward Sicarius with zero blind spots.
"Yet before the Grandfather's blessings, skill is utterly meaningless!"
Sicarius's vision was instantly engulfed in darkness as his power armor's sensors alerted frantically under the flies' gnawing and jamming.
Forced to divide his focus, he swung his sword to disperse the lethal swarm, introducing a moment of hesitation into his hitherto flawless movements.
At that critical juncture, Typhus moved.
The First Captain of the Death Guard displayed an explosive power completely at odds with his bulk. Stepping boldly forward right against the point of Sicarius's sword, he brought the massive soul-reaping scythe sweeping across with unmatched momentum.
CLANG!!!
Sicarius raised his sword to parry, but the force behind the strike was crushing, like a rotting mountain collapsing onto him.
The Second Captain of the Ultramarines felt his very bones groan as the ground beneath his feet shattered, his legs sinking deep into the mud. Though his strength represented the absolute pinnacle among mortals, he remained slightly outmatched when facing a chosen champion personally blessed by Nurgle.
"It is over, Cato Sicarius."
Typhus declared coldly. Utilizing his size advantage, he pressed down hard on Sicarius's power sword, then flicked his wrist. The rusty yet razor-sharp blade of the scythe slid down the length of Sicarius's sword, aiming straight for his neck joint.
With his power sword trapped and his body pinned, Sicarius watched as the scythe's edge—dripping with lethal plague—came within inches of his throat, close enough that he could smell the nauseating stench of rust clinging to the metal.
At this life-and-death moment, Sicarius's pupils shrank sharply. Less than ten meters behind Typhus, an anomaly erupted within a pile of corpses.
Accompanied by the sickening sound of tearing flesh, a Chaos Spawn bristling with tentacles and fangs burst from the sea of bodies and blood. Raising a chaotic howl, the indescribable lump of flesh launched into a frenzy of indiscriminate attacks.
Though theoretically an indiscriminate rampage, given that it happened to emerge directly behind Typhus while driven by wild aggressive instinct, this flurry of thrashing tentacles and gnashing teeth landed entirely upon the back of the First Captain's Terminator armor.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Heavy blows struck like a pile driver. Typhus endured the full force of these strikes; though the heavy defense of his Terminator armor spared him from damage, the tremendous kinetic impact caused his previously assured movement to stiffen and deviate for a fraction of a second.
It was precisely this deviation of a fraction of a second that saved Sicarius's life.
Seizing the opportunity, the Second Captain twisted his body sharply to shed the pressure, allowing the scythe intended for his neck to graze across his breastplate instead.
SCREECH!
Ceramite shattered and sparks flew as the horrific scythe left a bone-deep gouge across the Aquila emblem on Sicarius's chest, the virulent rust even corroding parts of the armor plate.
Yet to an Astartes, this was a flesh wound.
Had Typhus's strike landed slightly to the side and severed Sicarius's arm, the Second Captain's swordplay would have been halved at the very least. But while this strike across his chest looked alarming, it did nothing to impair his fighting capability.
"Who dares?!"
Typhus nearly choked on a mouthful of old blood inside his helmet. Seeing his guaranteed prey slip away, he turned around in fury to see which blind fool was causing trouble from behind.
Yet all that met his eyes was the Chaos Spawn flailing its tentacles at random.
Typhus attempted to trace the source using psychic perception, but he quickly gave up—it was entirely impossible.
This battlefield was far too chaotic. Corpses were piled higher than tanks, Helldivers soldiers were intertwined with Nurgle poxwalkers, death and slaughter reigned everywhere, and psychic fluctuations were as chaotic as a boiling pot of poisonous stew. Emperor knows which unlucky soul had lost control and mutated into a Chaos Spawn, which lurking psyker had transformed someone into one, or if it was simply a prank played by the Warp itself.
"Begone! Scum!"
Furious, Typhus swung his scythe backhanded, crushing the twisting mass of flesh into splatters of foul, foul-smelling gore across the ground.
Taking advantage of the momentum, he leaped backward to put distance between himself and Sicarius.
By now, the surrounding situation had inverted.
The zombie horde, lacking coordination, began to crumble under the desperate countercharge of the Helldivers tanks and infantry. Meanwhile, the once rock-solid Death Guard were steadily forced back under the Ultramarines' precise point-blank shooting and power weapon assaults.
Typhus glanced around at the poxwalkers being crushed beneath mortal tanks, then looked back at Sicarius—who held his power sword with damaged chest armor but a battle intent burning even hotter. He knew today's tactical objective could no longer be achieved.
"Hmph..."
The pestilent swarm gathered around him once more. Typhus glared coldly at Sicarius, delivering his final curse: "You had best pray you can show up in time every single time, and you had best pray that every single time... you are lucky enough to encounter such low-probability anomalies."
As his words fell, a thicker cloud of toxic fog rose from beneath his feet, spreading rapidly.
Under the cover of this sky-blotting mist, the fighting poxwalkers and Death Guard seemed to hear a silent order. They ceased their struggle and, like a receding tide of filth, withdrew into the depths of the shadows.
______________________
Noticed the new Webnovel update? I know get notifications from your replies to other people comments.