Unity

Amid the fiery blasts and flying flesh, the sorcerer on the platform finally snapped out of his ritualistic fervor. Watching the followers below flee in every direction like headless flies, his eyes flashed with fury.

He raised a staff twisted from bone and metal high above his head and roared in a voice infused with psychic power, trying to restore order. "Stop! You cowards! Those who flee will be deemed traitors to the Dark Gods, and your souls will suffer eternal torment in the Warp!"

His voice drowned out some of the lingering echoes of the explosions, and several fleeing Cultists abruptly stopped in their tracks.

"Fight for the glory of the gods!" The sorcerer's voice was full of temptation. "Those who fight will be watched by the Dark Gods! Your bravery will earn you eternal gifts!"

His efforts did have an effect.

Long-term brainwashing and Chaos corruption had already twisted these people's minds. The human instinct to seek advantage and avoid harm was fading from their brains. Driven by fear of eternal torment and greed for blessings, they actually stopped. Their bloodshot eyes turned toward the Players at the entrance as they began trying to organize a charge.

If this sorcerer had been given enough time, he might really have been able to stabilize the tens of thousands of disordered Cultists. If that happened, the Players would have already lost half the battle—there were thousands upon thousands of Cultists here. If they truly got organized and clashed head-on with the Players, then although the Players were not afraid of death and could not truly die, the assault on the Chemical Refinery would certainly be dragged into a quagmire. With over ten thousand people, even if they just stood still and let the Players kill them, it would still take quite a while.

The most important thing in this battle was a quick resolution. No one knew when the Cultists on the main battlefield would return to reinforce them, nor did anyone know how long Commissar Walter's promised delay could last. If the enemy's main force returned before they had seized and secured the defenses here, then this mission would already be a failure.

Fortunately, the sorcerer's attempt was crushed cleanly and decisively.

"Seventh Squad, charge!" Seeing signs that the Cultists were beginning to organize, Ruan Wenbo gave the order without hesitation. "But don't stop throwing grenades!"

The Ogryn Big Eagle Cop, who had long been stifled by all the sneaky infiltration along the way, immediately let out a roar full of excitement and rage!

"Awoo—!"

His voice was like a thunderclap from a clear sky. It was so loud that it briefly drowned out every other sound on the battlefield. Several Players beside him grimaced in pain, and one of them could not help cursing, "Damn, I think my eardrums burst."

Led by Big Eagle Cop, Seventh Squad charged fiercely into the Cultist lines like tigers among sheep. The outer-ring Cultists, who had just been stirred up by the sorcerer and had not yet formed an effective formation, were terrified senseless by the horrifying presence of that humanoid beast—literally terrified senseless. They stood there blankly, watching grenades explode at their feet, watching bayonets and searing Lasgun beams strike them.

The sorcerer's attempt at organization had unquestionably failed. Lacking both basic education and the restraint of junior officers, the Cultists' fragile morale collapsed once again with ease. As Seventh Squad punched through them, the entire mass of Cultists completely scattered. As for the sorcerer on the platform, he soon vanished amid the chaos. Perhaps he had quietly left using some psychic ability, or perhaps his psychic power had been weak to begin with, and he had simply died to some stray bullet or grenade from who knew where.

The battle swiftly entered the pursuit phase. The Players began hunting down the Cultists fleeing in all directions, though they were not determined to kill every last one. With only a hundred people, it would have been extremely difficult to catch ten thousand pigs running everywhere, let alone two-legged humans who could squeeze through holes. The Players' mission was simply to drive them completely out of the Chemical Refinery.

A group of more than a dozen Cultists fled in panic through the complex maze of pipes and corridors. Behind them, several Players followed at an unhurried pace—they had already studied the map and knew there was a dead end ahead.

"Hehehe... keep running..." One Player let out a sinister laugh, deliberately making sure the Cultists ahead heard him. "Let's see how far you can get!"

His companions beside him also burst into hearty laughter.

Looking at the Cultists' panicked, terrified expressions ahead, then at the Players behind them with wicked grins as they closed in step by step like cats toying with mice, it was hard to say who the real villains were.

However, the cat-and-mouse smiles on the Players' faces abruptly vanished in the next instant, freezing in place.

Their gazes passed over the shivering Cultists and focused, as if by unspoken agreement, on the ceiling above them—in the darkness shrouded by pipes and shadows, a distinct white outlined silhouette that only appeared on enemies was silently lurking.

The shape of that outline was exceedingly strange. It resembled a huge, curled-up insect, with a smooth, elongated head and four powerful arms tucked against its body. At the end of each arm seemed to be blade-like claws. Its entire body was covered in some kind of carapace, perfectly blending into the darkness. Without the game system's friend-or-foe identification function, it would have been impossible to spot with the naked eye.

The pursuing Players exchanged glances, their eyes filled with gravity and a trace of barely concealed excitement. Clearly, everyone had seen that thing.

A hidden quest? Or was this the true BOSS of the Chemical Refinery?

They did not immediately shout a warning. Instead, they displayed astonishing coordination. Maintaining their previous leisurely posture, they cleanly executed the Cultists, who had already fallen into despair and begun desperately kowtowing and begging for mercy, with bayonets and Lasguns.

Then, at the exact moment they killed the last Cultist, the squad instantly swung their weapons around and poured all their firepower, without warning, onto the unknown creature on the ceiling!

Two fragmentation grenades traced short arcs through the air, thrown precisely beneath the silhouette. Immediately afterward, seven or eight crimson Lasgun beams, as though guided by invisible hands, concentrated on the same spot within a fraction of a second.

In theory, even an armored vehicle caught unprepared by such concentrated fire would have suffered severe damage.

But unfortunately, that was merely theory.

At the very instant before the grenades exploded and the Lasguns hit, the silhouette simply flickered away. It moved too fast for the naked eye to follow, like a streak of violet-black lightning, effortlessly evading every one of the Players' long-planned attacks.

The exploding grenades and missed Lasgun beams blasted sparks and debris across the ceiling.

Before the Players could recover from the shock of their failed attack, the black shadow had already plunged into their midst.

Everything happened in an instant. Claw-blades too sharp to be real sliced through ballistic armor like a hot knife through butter. The Players did not even have time to scream before their bodies were cut into several pieces in a single moment. Scalding blood and organs splattered across the entire corridor, staining the cold metal floor a horrifying crimson.

After elegantly and efficiently killing that group of Players, Ghost Claw Liam Bright immediately left the area. It had not come to fight the Imperium's forces. It had a more important mission.

Even so, it felt a trace of confusion. Its lurking techniques, which allowed it to merge with darkness itself, were something even many psykers might not be able to sense. How had these mortals discovered it?

"Forget it. The Star God will redeem everyone equally," it muttered in its mind with inhuman thought. Its form flickered several times before disappearing into the depths of the factory's shadows. It never noticed that after it left, the corpses that had been chopped into pieces, dead beyond all doubt, flickered faintly on the ground before returning to normal.

The resurrected Players stood there blankly, staring at the place where flesh and blood had just been flying everywhere, their faces full of shock. One Player pulled up the system log, and when he saw the identity of the one who had killed them marked in red text, he could not help blurting out, "Damn! A pure-blood Genestealer!"