Brood Lord

"Fire! Don't let it escape!"

Rovi raised his Bolt Pistol and fired two shots at the shadowy figure.

The bolts exploded on the concrete at the monster's feet.

Shrapnel sliced through its carapace, spilling yellow-green fluid.

The monster let out a piercing shriek.

The sound didn't seem to come from vocal cords vibrating.

It was more like a psychic scream drilling directly into the brain.

With that shriek, cold eyes flickered to life in the shadows of the surrounding pipes.

"There's more than one!"

Buck roared, his Heavy Boltgun finally bellowing.

"Thump! Thump! Thump!"

The dull thunder of bolt rounds echoed.

These caliber rounds were originally meant for light vehicles.

Against Genestealers, a single hit meant shattered bones and torn flesh.

One monster trying to flank from the side took a bolt round to the chest.

Its entire upper body exploded into a mist of blood.

"Suppressing fire, don't stop!" Rovi commanded as he rushed toward Alpha Priest, who was operating the oil pump. "How much longer?"

"The third vehicle is filling, flow rate is at maximum!" Alpha Priest's mechanical voice carried a hint of urgency. "The Machine Spirit is screaming, the pump is overheating!"

"Let it scream—if it burns out, we'll fix it later!"

The battle instantly reached a fever pitch.

This group of Genestealers clearly hadn't expected such ferocious firepower from their "prey."

Two Heavy Boltguns formed a crossfire of death, tearing apart any monster that dared show itself.

After the initial panic, the recruits began to find their footing under Buck's curses and the threat of death.

Dozens of lasguns, though weak individually, formed a searing wall of light in concentrated volleys.

Even the Genestealers' tough carapaces couldn't withstand sustained high-energy burning.

One monster trying to force its way through was hit by over a dozen las-shots simultaneously.

Its carapace was instantly burned through, filling the air with a stench of scorched flesh as it collapsed with a howl.

"Fourth vehicle!"

"Fifth!"

Just as the last truck's fuel tank was about to fill, Rovi felt the ground beneath him begin to tremble.

"Kais, what's happening?"

"The signal source below is moving at high speed," Kais reported urgently. "It's... the Brood Lord. It's enraged."

Rovi's expression darkened.

Ordinary Genestealers they could barely handle.

But a Brood Lord—

This was a monster lord with powerful psychic abilities and terrifying melee prowess, capable of going toe-to-toe with a Space Marine in single combat, even killing one.

This squad of recruits would collapse instantly if they faced it head-on.

Rovi's goal with this operation was to train a batch of new soldiers, not to send them to their deaths.

"Disconnect the hose, retreat!"

Rovi made the call on the spot, not even waiting for the residual fuel in the pipe to drain.

"But it's not full yet..." one recruit hesitating at the fueling station stammered.

"Bang!"

Rovi shot the locking clamp clean off, black promethium spraying out and drenching the recruit.

"Stay here if you want to be dessert!"

The convoy roared to life, forcing a start.

Just as the last truck pulled away from the pump station, the ground exploded.

A colossal monster, over three meters tall, burst up from below.

Its carapace was thicker, a deep, dark purple.

Six arms flailed, radiating a psychic pulse.

It let out an enraged roar, one claw slamming down onto the still-leaking fuel tank coupling.

"Boom!"

Sparks ignited the leaking promethium.

A blazing fireball bloomed like a venomous red lotus, savage and beautiful.

In the narrow rectangular field of the rearview mirror, it erupted, instantly swallowing the entire pump station.

Even through the thick armor and the curtain of rain hundreds of meters away, the heat, enough to melt steel, still made the Chimera's windows faintly warm.

From the churning core of black-red flames came a shriek of utter agony.

The Brood Lord's scream.

A pulse laden with spatial-warping energy stabbed viciously into the cerebral cortex of every living thing nearby.

Rovi sat in the jolting command seat, gripping the armrest tightly until the violent dizziness and headache faded, then slowly let out a breath.

He glanced again at the inferno still raging in the rearview mirror and muttered under his breath:

"Praise the Emperor, and those ever-unstable flammables and explosives."

As for whether the monster was dead?

Rovi didn't know, and didn't intend to find out.

A Genestealer Brood Lord was a nightmare of biological evolution, an apex predator lurking in the shadows.

They possessed physical strength rivaling an Astartes, along with eerie psychic shields.

Maybe the blast had charred it to a crisp.

Maybe it had only singed a layer of skin, and it was now dragging its ruined body into the earth, its Compound Eye filled with venomous hatred, fixed on the direction the convoy had fled.

Either way, Rovi was absolutely not turning back to confirm.

Curiosity was the cat's epitaph.

And in the Warhammer world, turning back to check a corpse was often the start of a horror story.

"Kais." Rovi pressed the communicator against his throat, his voice cold and clinical.

"Package the biological signal signatures we recorded, the nest coordinates, and the explosion assessment report. Encrypt it and send it to the Governor's Mansion."

A threat of this level

was already beyond the handling capacity of Granary Seven.

Rather than charging at a psychic monster with a handful of flashlights, it was better to toss this hot potato to someone more capable.

He trusted that Governor Alicia, upon seeing the entry "Genestealer," would be more eager than anyone to mobilize the elite of the Planetary Defense Force.

After all, compared to the slow, visible rot of Nurgle, these bugs that could silently topple a regime were the rulers' deepest nightmare.

After instructing Kais, Rovi wiped the cold sweat from his brow, glanced down at his pocket watch.

From entry to extraction: twenty-three minutes.

Five trucks, four fully loaded, one at eighty percent.

Lost three rookies, expended two base loads of bolter rounds.

But in exchange, they had enough fuel to supply the entire granary for half a year.

This deal was a massive win!

"Advisor." Buck spoke, trembling, clearly still shaken. "What exactly were those monsters?"

"Another kind of reaper." Rovi leaned back in his seat, closing his eyes wearily. "More greedy, more hungry than the Lord of Pestilence."

"When we get back, tighten surveillance on the underground pipe network. If this stuff is here, it means our underground might not be clean either."

The return trip was even more silent than the ride out.

Gray-black acid rain hammered the Chimera Personnel Carrier's armor, producing an irritating, chaotic noise.

The rookies huddled in the cramped troop compartment. No one spoke.

A few hours ago, they had been refugees lining up for Green Soup.

Now, they clutched lasguns that had killed enemies, staring blankly at the mud-caked floor.

The adrenaline was wearing off, replaced by exhaustion and lingering fear.

In the passenger seat, Rovi held a piece of rock-hard compressed biscuit but had no appetite.

He stared through the observation window at the "Wall of Gluttony" armor on the front of the vehicle.

The armor was undergoing some unsettling change.

The Nurgle Metal Plate, which could only devour rotting flesh and secrete digestive fluids, now displayed a nearly frenzied "appetite."

During the earlier collision, a severed arm from the Genestealer had lodged onto it, now tightly entangled by purplish-red tendrils.

Normally, the "Wall of Gluttony" could digest a Walking Dead in mere seconds, like a hot knife through butter.

But this time, it hit a snag.

The Genestealer's carapace was unbelievably tough.

And it seemed to carry a natural resistance.

Rovi clearly saw the tendrils recoil sharply, as if scalded, upon touching the pale purple shell.

Then, driven by greedy instinct, they surged forward again.

Sizzle, sizzle.

Thin white smoke rose.

The corrosive power of Nurgle, representing the chaotic force of twisted life and endless cycles, clashed with the Terran Xenos, embodying extreme evolution and absolute adaptation.

On a microscopic level, a brutal battle of devouring and counter-devouring raged.

No Warp lightning.

No psychic storms.

Only the most primal, cellular-level consumption and resistance.

"Quite interesting, isn't it?"

Alpha's calm electronic voice came through the earpiece.

Rovi replied flatly, "If you mean the sound of our vehicle's front melting, then yes, it's quite interesting."

"Advisor, I mean the data. That Xenos sample... its cellular structure, while resisting corrosion, is trying to 'understand' it. It's altering its molecular arrangement."

"Are you saying it's evolving?" Rovi frowned.

"Perhaps 'being assimilated' is more accurate," the Priest corrected. "Two extremes of biological logic are seeking a balance point. If we could control this process..."

"Stop right there," Rovi cut him off coldly. "First, get the vehicle back. That's heretical research to worry about once we're home."

"Right now, I just want to make sure this thing doesn't suddenly grow a mouth and eat our driver."

The convoy rumbled across the muddy wasteland, tracks churning up black waste soil.

On the distant horizon.

The massive, gloomy silhouette of Granary Seven slowly emerged.

For this exhausted team.

This granary fortress, reeking of corpse stench and fermentation.

Now looked, somehow, eerily comforting.