"Barbarian" (Seeking Follow-up Reads)

The lasgun, handcrafted by the finest artisans of the Khanty-Mansi Dome, emitted a brilliant beam—two beams, in fact—that struck with surgical precision, piercing both eyes of an Ogryn almost simultaneously.

"Bad! That little one spotted us!"

The guide, a creature known as "Smarty" who stood at least a head taller than the other Ogryns and possessed the rare ability to count as high as five, bellowed at the top of his lungs.

"Charge! Kill him, or we all die!"

Smarty swung his massive club, roaring his command.

"Smash!"

"Meat!"

As all the Ogryns excitedly echoed the cries of "Smash" and "Meat," another giant collapsed to the ground.

Ogryns possess a massive stride; a single step for them covers the distance of several human paces, and when charging at high speed, they resemble humanoid tanks storming through a hive city war.

But they were not faster than the bullets of Nimrod. The terrain, the distance, the running speed of the Ogryns, and their physical dimensions were all fed into his mind as variables, instantly processed into a calculated model.

Two Ogryns ran straight into the path of the light, pierced through by four consecutive beams.

Smarty reacted, shielding his eyes with his left arm and adopting a zigzag running pattern.

Sure enough, he avoided the beams.

The two guides, however, lost their nerve; Nimrod's marksmanship was simply too precise.

They had once heard the well-informed Arbites mention that wounds which would kill an ordinary man several times over meant nothing to an Ogryn.

Lasgun fire against their thick, leathery hides would only leave a bloody hole, not bring them down—which was exactly why Dimitrov had been so confident.

Yet, they realized that every single shot from Nimrod was landing precisely in the Ogryns' vulnerable eyes.

Whether they were standing still during an ambush or sprinting at high speed, it made no difference.

Recalling the combat record Nimrod had built over the last twenty work cycles, they lost their courage and turned to flee in unison.

"Cowards!"

The guard captain under Estupinian cast a look of disdain at them, his heart filled with resentment; his master did not trust them, hiring brainless Ogryns instead to serve as support.

[Intelligence and discipline are the true essence of combat!]

The guard captain shouted, "Attack!"

Twenty elite guards pulled their triggers, unleashing a torrent of ammunition toward Nimrod.

The next moment, the two fleeing men had their skulls shattered, their bodies thumping heavily onto the ground.

The guard captain was shocked; the boy had managed to dodge the attack at high speed while simultaneously raising his gun to execute the two men.

He ducked his head violently, trying to hide behind a piece of discarded industrial machinery.

One guard, failing to hear his captain's voice, turned to look, only to see the captain's skull pierced through; he stared with wide eyes as he collapsed, and then everything went black.

When Smarty reached the entrance of the corridor, there were no living men left behind him, though he neither knew nor cared.

His mind held only one thought: smash the target boy to death and return to eat meat steaks.

Seeing the boy draw a Chainsword and wait for him at the corridor entrance, Smarty immediately swung his club down.

With a thunderous crash, the club slammed into the wall of the abandoned factory above the corridor.

Nimrod used his positioning to bait Smarty into a blocked attack, then seized the opportunity to leap forward, his roaring blade carving into the Ogryn's thigh.

"Argh!"

The Ogryn let out a miserable shriek as nearly a quarter of the flesh on his thigh was sheared away, exposing the bone beneath.

"Smash you!"

Smarty learned his lesson this time; his club didn't scrape the stone wall but instead struck a metal pipe in the corridor, instantly denting it.

Nimrod circled the Ogryn, making full use of the corridor entrance; Smarty's height matched the ceiling, and swinging his meter-long club left him constantly restricted.

Every one of his strikes landed on the Ogryn's legs, the wounds gradually connecting.

With a heavy thud, Smarty collapsed to the ground, only then realizing that his legs were gone.

"Get two teams here—one to carry him back, the other to provide cover."

"Remember, do not damage his arms."

"Yes, Boss."

Two teams immediately arrived at the corridor entrance, and upon approaching the half-Ogryn, they felt the sheer bulk of the massive creature.

Even though they were the best-fed men in the Underhive, the Ogryn was four or five times their width.

After Nimrod sent the two teams to drag the primary material back, he waved a hand at Bukayo, who was looking at him with adoration.

"Lead the way!"

"Yes, Boss!"

Bukayo answered loudly, turning to puff out his chest and lead the path forward.

The group marched on until they reached a dense web of cobwebs, at which point Bukayo whispered his report to the boss.

"Boss, we're less than a kilometer from the abandoned dome where the spider's nest is located. We've entered its detection range."

Nimrod gave a slight nod; his superhuman senses had already pierced through the dense layers of webbing, perceiving the colossal creature.

"Fire!"

Ten gang members immediately hurled the Molotov cocktails they were holding forward.

Dozens of bottles spiked with promethium ignited instantly, causing the webs to vanish at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if melting away.

Mangled, ash-black corpses tumbled down and slammed into the ground.

The subordinates' eyes stung, and they hurriedly pulled on their respirators. Once their vision cleared, they saw the horrific scene on the ground.

The floor was littered with white bones, not a single one intact.

Bukayo reminded Nimrod with a worried expression, "Boss, when I scouted this area earlier, I happened to run into the Black Widow feeding."

"It stands over twenty meters tall, and its lung sac is as large as three or four grown men."

"The sound it makes when it exhales is sharp and piercing, enough to make your head spin. Anyone hit by the blast of air has their bones shattered, left to collapse on the ground and wait in despair for it to reach them."

Nimrod glanced at Bukayo. For a youth to witness such a terrifying scene and still remain calm enough to respond, he was a talent worth cultivating.

He turned his gaze forward as the Black Widow drew closer, and he spoke to the two Rat-Catcher squads.

"Spread out and initiate the attack, but be careful not to hit the lung sac."

"Understood, Boss."

The Rat-Catcher Squad immediately moved, taking cover behind discarded equipment.

The members of the Rat-Catcher Squad watched nervously as a massive figure crawled along the ceiling above.

Its giant lungs were only a few meters above the ground.

One Rat-Catcher's hand trembled, and he pulled the trigger.

In his haste, he didn't aim properly, and the bullet struck the lung sac directly.

Nimrod cursed under his breath, only to realize the bullet had ricocheted off; the lung sac had merely twitched slightly.

[As expected of the main ingredient for a Sequence 8 potion, it is far tougher than an ordinary lung.]

The fourteen eyes of the Lung Spider shimmered with a cold glint. Its lung sac inhaled sharply, and a hurricane-like force swept through the tunnel.

Just as the Lung Spider was about to unleash the pressurized air from its lungs, a gunshot rang out, and a beam of light pierced one of its eyes.

The other materials had already been gathered; there was no need to capture the Lung Spider alive, only to obtain the lung sac.

The Lung Spider's remaining thirteen eyes all fixed upon the youth below.

The moment it locked onto the youth's pitch-black eyes, its body shuddered. Instinct told it that this youth was more dangerous than all the others combined.

With a thunderous boom, Bukayo and the others felt as if a cannon had fired, the entire tunnel shaking violently.

They looked toward their boss in terror, only to see a horrific shockwave smashing the discarded equipment into fragments.

"Boss!"

Bukayo cried out in grief. Ever since he had fled to the lower hive, he had struggled to survive, eating one meal only to starve for three days.

It wasn't until Nimrod appeared that, while life was still hard, he could at least eat his fill.

If the boss were gone, no one could keep this large group in check, and he didn't want to go back to living like that again.

Just then, a brilliant beam of light illuminated Bukayo's eyes, as well as the gloom in his heart.

Another of the Black Widow's eyes had been shot through—the boss wasn't dead!

As the light flickered and the smoke cleared, Bukayo saw the boss's figure again; the Lung Spider had lost all its eyes.

It took a deep breath, blindly unleashing shockwaves in every direction.

"Hit its spider legs!"

Nimrod roared, and the group pulled their triggers, pouring a hail of bullets onto the Black Widow.

The blinded Black Widow struggled in vain, causing the deaths of four Rat-Catcher members.

Nimrod used his Chainsword to carve out the lung sac, ordered four Rat-Catchers to carry it, and returned to the Magneto Steelworks.

He immediately began preparing the Barbarian potion.

He tossed the Psyker Crystal into the Las-Vault, and the furnace erupted with a blinding light, quickly melting the Mithal Steel into molten metal.

After he threw the Lung Spider's lung sac inside, the furnace began to emit a series of explosive bangs.

[It isn't going to blow up, is it?]

Nimrod thought with concern, but his hands didn't slow down as he tossed the arm of the Smarty inside.

The explosions ceased instantly, and a brilliant black radiance erupted.

He waited for the light to fade before scooping out the black, gelatinous substance from within.

It remained a perfectly uniform mass, with no residue left in the furnace.

Nimrod tilted his head back and drank the Sequence 8 Barbarian potion.